Amiga Tools 3/Amiga Tools 3.iso/grafik/raytracing/imagine/tips/arc24.txt

Text File | 1993-03-12 | 198KB | 4,714 lines

IMAGINE archive: collected off of [e-mail]

ARCHIVE XXIV
Jun. 25 '92 - Jul. 24 '92

If you have questions or problems with this file, email Marvin Landis
at [e-mail]

note: each message seperated by a '##'

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Subject: Re: Professional Fonts in Imagine ??
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 92 3:25:47 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Aaron Tucker)

>
> Hi imagining people,
>
Hello there.

> I recently tried to produce some good-looking fonts for Imagine. The
> main problem was to provide the letters with these professional looking
> edges (for reflecting light etc.). I can't describe it very well cause
> I don't know the right words, but in almost every professional Animation
> the letters have no simple edges. They have these light reflecting egdes
> which makes them look so good.
>
I know exactly what you're talking about. The ones that I am familiar with
are done by some high end IBM PC software by my competition. His software
is able to automatically perform these outlines, so he tells me. These fonts
have what seems like a thick reflective coating along the sides that sticks
out a little in front of the face of the letter. Beautiful fonts. Very slick
and professional looking.

> So I tried to find a way of producing them in Imagine. But all efforts
> were useless because Imagine can't outline a letter.
>
Right. BUT, you have a few options to producing these. But first, I'll let
you know that Imagine has no automatic function to perform this. Listen
Impulse...HINT HINT HINT!!! Anyways...
    1) Buy some. :-)  I saw an ad from Unli (sp?) that were selling
some for Imagine, Lightwave, and Caligari. (The Caligari version uses some
special something or other to make them look simply fantastic so I hear.)
Anyways...I recently saw the ad in AmigaWorld or Amazing.
    2) Uses a third party program like Pixel-3D to make some beveled
edges on some fonts. Then, in Imagine's Detail Editor, manipulate the points
to adjust the thickness of the outline. Seperate the outline from the face of
the font. Extrude the outline to your hearts content and group them. Wala.
    3) Do it by hand. I find that the best results come from doing it by
hand instead of using any third party software. Here is what I do:
    a) Import a large font, approx. 80 to 120 points in size. That is,
import all the letters that you will need. Fracture the curves. Make them
nice and smooth by dragging the points evenly.
    b) Then, one letter at a time, Copy it, Paste it, scale it a little
larger then the original, and adjust the points for a perfect thick outline.
Now, skin the outline of the face to the outline of the outline to give the
outline a face. Got that? Then load in the outline of the face that you saved
earlier :-) and add faces to it...MANUALLY.
    c) The last modelling step is to use the Make Sharp function for all
of the sharp edges that you want. LISTEN HERE IMPULSE...HOW ABOUT AN OPTION
TO AUTOMATICALLY MAKE SHARP ANY ANGLE THAT IS Xdeg OR LESS, WHERE WE PROVIDE
THE X (default at 90) AND THE OPTION TO TURN THIS ON PER OBJECT?

    Well, I guess that's it! Have fun.

Juan Trevino
[e-mail]


> So everyone out there who has an idea of forming letters with these
> super edges please help me.
>
> Hannes
>
>
> P.S.: Hope this mail causes no bounces :)
>
>



##

Subject: Re:  Lighting in Imagine
Date:     Thu, 25 Jun 1992 09:58:57 -0400
From: John J Humpal <[e-mail]>

Adam Benjamin writes:
>
> In a previous article [e-mail] writes:
>
> >1)  Your main or key light...make this bright.  For a sunny day or
> >well-it room, use a shadow-casting spherical light, RGB=500,500,500
> >or so.
>
> What TYPE of light do you use? spherical, diminish intensity, etc...
> If your object is at (or moves around near) coordinates 0,0,0  Where
> would you put the light source? (x,y,z)

    Your primary light is usually (not always) spherical, does NOT
diminish intensity.  For fill lights, I like to use diminishing inten-
sity lights at varying distances, depending on what parts of my objects
I want to highlight.  Light placement is up to you, although most
scenes will place the primary light a good distance from the objects
and slightly off line of the camera.

> It sounds like most of you use at least 2 lights.  That I will have
> to try I bet that will help a lot.  But why do you suppose I need to
> crank the light up to such high RGB values?
>
    Sorry, I have no idea.

> Am I wrong in thinking Imagine can produce good looking pics/anims in
> scanline mode?  Geez, I don't have all month to do a trace animation.
> Will scanline mode produce shadows at least in surface details on the
> object? (this is more highlights/shading than shadows)

    Scanline will properly shade your objects.  It just won't
produce *cast* shadows.

--
-John

John J. Humpal -- [e-mail] -- short .sig, std. disclaimer



##

Subject: "Real3D Contest" picture on hubcap
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 92 17:11:32 MET DST
From: Markus Stipp <[e-mail]>

Hello !

I've just uploaded my first released Imagine-picture to hubcap. You can
find it in:

/pub/amiga/incoming/imagine/pics/Real3DContest.lha
and
/pub/amiga/incoming/imagine/pics/Real3DContest.readme

It's a Real3D-picture I've seen in many german computer magazines. They all
stated that Real3D has the best picture quality. I recreated this picture just
to show that such a quality is possible with imagine, too (And now I think
my picture looks better :-). For more details look into the readme-file.

Hope you like my first picture...

--

   ...Markus Stipp !!   ([e-mail])


##

Subject: re: Lighting in Imagine (I got it!)
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 92 08:42:00 EST
From: Adam Benjamin <[e-mail]>

Ha ha! The light in my head finally came on last night!
Thanks for all your help in lighting setups for Imagine.  While
fiddling around with the suggestions given me, I found what was really
hosing up my rendering. (Something no one came out and said directly,
but is really inferred to by the need for more than one light source)
I pass this on since there may be others who will benefit.

Since this is a RAY tracer, the position of the lights are only HALF
the battle for good lighting, the other half is the ANGLE formed by
the rays of light hitting your object and where they bounce to.
For Example:
Take a flat plane and put it 90 degrees "flat" in front of the camera.
(like you were reading from it)  If you put your light source right
above the camera you should get a nice rendering of the plane right?
MAYBE! it depends on how high the light is, as soon as you move
the light above the camera AT ALL the light coming back to the camera
from the flat plane will start to DECREASE and above 45 degrees it
really goes to black fast.  Hence the more lights you add to a scene
the less "black space" you will have.
Also another thing someone was kind enough to point out was that
highly reflective objects will NOT show their color (right or wrong).
it's strange but if you look at a brand new car closely, try to find a
section of the car where the true paint color is, and you see what
imagine does all the time.
Take a chrome ball and stick it on a black stage with as many lights
as you want, all you will render is the specular white spots on the
ball, the rest of the ball will be black, no matter what color you
make it. Technically this is correct, but very confusing until you
realize what is going on.
Thanks everyone for your help, hope this helps others in return.
************************************************************
* Adam Benjamin                    [e-mail] *
* Christian Animator           [e-mail] *
* Disclaimer:  Nothing I say means anything to anyone that *
*               might take it to mean something I didn't!  *



##

Subject: Light going thru objects, bug?
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 92 15:58:59 CST
From: [e-mail] (Isaac Guajardo Leal)

Hi all Imagine users :

    I have seen some issues about light(ing) ... and there is something
that i don't know if it's the way it should be (?). When i render a spot
light (conical or cylindrical) and point it to two planes (for
simplicity) one behind the other and look from one side. i can see the
light hitting the first plane, BUT also the second plane as if the first
were translucent not solid (as it is!). It doesn't matter if in scanline
or trace mode ... the only way i have found to get rid of this effect if
not dessired is to cast shadows with the light, but that will make me
render in trace with shadows at rendering time expense. Real life
doesn't behave like this, but in raytracing life is ? or it's some sort
of bug in Imagine ?

    I'm new to this list, but have been reading some of the archives at
hubcap to be updated. The last recent one is from February (?).

    Also, someone posted a few weeks ago about rendering glass that come
out with large black areas (where there is no black anywere near the
scene!) mainly because of the Phong option, why this happens ? what if i
want to render a very smooth glass object, zillions of faces ? and
eventhow i turn phong off i still get some black areas ! any ideas or
comments ... Thanks.

        Isaac (Psycho) Guajardo
       [e-mail]
"The one who dies with the most toys wins!"




##

Subject: Cycleman
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 92 08:51:12 -0400
From: [e-mail] (Bandy michael carl 792-6000x3351)

Have any of you seen the Cycleman package?  What do you think?


##

Subject: Shadows & Refraction
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 92 16:22:31 -0700
From: Jeff Walkup <[e-mail]>

[e-mail] (Isaac Guajardo Leal) writes:

> When i render a spot light (conical or cylindrical) and
> point it to two planes (for simplicity) one behind the other
> and look from one side. i can see the light hitting the
> first plane, BUT also the second plane as if the first were
> translucent not solid (as it is!).


This is because you don't have shadows turned on for that
lightsource.  If you don't turn on shadows, the light will
pass thru any object, no matter what it's attributes.  This
is the way it works.  The only way around it is, as you
said, to turn on the shadows and render in Trace mode.



>    Also, someone posted a few weeks ago about rendering
> glass that come out with large black areas (where there is
> no black anywere near the scene!)


I assume that this has something to do with the index of
refraction.  The light enters the object, and gets refracted
so much that it just bounces around inside forever, never
escaping into the camera.  Sort of a black-hole effect.
Try reducing the index of refraction, or changing the shape
of the object, or rendering in Scanline mode (!)

-----------                                                       //
Jeff Walkup <[e-mail]> Graphics/Animation Designer \\//



##

Subject: TTDDD
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 92 09:11:50 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Bob Lindabury, SysAdm)

rutgers!pcocd2.intel.com!glewis (Glenn M. Lewis ~) writes:

> >>>>> On Wed, 24 Jun 92 13:23:29 -0400, [e-mail] said:
>
> Dave> Greetings;
>
> Dave>         Can anyone out there tell me a little about the program
> Dave> TTDDD?  Specifically what kinds of things can be done with it
> Dave> (especially by none programmers such as myself). I downloaded some
> Dave> nice 3D fonts from hubcap that were converted from TeX with TTDDD.
> Dave> Is this the kind of thing that I could do with little or no
> Dave> programming? Also what other programs/excessories would be useful
> Dave> with TTDDD? Thanks for the help!
>
>     Hi!  I am Glenn Lewis, the author of TTDDD and TTDDDLIB (also
> known as "T3DLIB").  I thought I would post to the list so that
> everybody would be up-to-date.
>
>     The source code (and executables that run under 2.04 of the Amiga
> operating system) are available on hubcap.clemson.edu [130.127.8.1] in
> the directory: pub/amiga/incoming/imagine/TTDDDLIB.
>
>     The entire T3DLIB package is shareware, and costs $25 to
> register.  Details are in the sources archive on hubcap.  As a "Thank You"
> for registering, I will send you a disk with the two utilities: TSTeX
> (which created the font you viewed on hubcap from public domain TeX
> fonts [in PK format]) and SQuad, which generates superquadric surfaces
> based upon parameters that you supply it.  Examples of superquadrics are
> torii, cubes (with rounded edges), diamonds, and a sphere is a
> degenerate superquadric.  I will also send you a copy of the TDDD file
> format, which is basically the documentation for the TTDDD file format,
> as it uses the same names, but is editable.  I also provide some
> examples on the diskette.

The T3DLIB and other related files can also be obtained from The
Graphics BBS file-server via e-mail.  Here is the directory listing:


File listing as of Thu Jun 25 05:00:55 1992

Files in directory /public/amiga/3d/ttddd:

offttddd.lzh   30080   04-Mar-91   OFF to TTDDD object file conversion utility
r33info.txt      844   30-May-92   Information on the TTDDD LIB archive
readme.txt      1374   30-May-92   Information about files in this directory
t3dexe33.lzh  289590   30-May-92   Glenn Lewis's great TTDDD utils. Get them!
t3dinfo.txt     2895   30-May-92   Information on the TTDDD executables
ttdddlib.zoo   78056   30-May-92   Glenn Lewis's TTDDD->OFF & NFF lib ver 3.3
ttdddlib.txt    2555   10-Jan-92   Readme file for TTDDDLIB


To obtain files from the server send email to
[e-mail].

To obtain any of the above files send mail to the above address with
the following in the body of your message:

/GET amiga/3d/ttddd/filename

For help on how to use the server send:

HELP

For a complete directory listing send:

/DIR

-- Bob

 The Graphics BBS  908/469-0049  "It's better than a sharp stick in the eye!"
 ============================================================================
  InterNet: [e-mail]                | Raven Enterprises
      UUCP: ...rutgers!bobsbox!graphics!bobl      | 25 Raven Avenue
    BitNet: bobl%graphics.rent.com@pucc           | Piscataway, NJ 08854
    Home #: 908/560-7353                          | 908/271-8878


##

Subject: Re:  Light going thru objects, bug?
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 92 17:01:15 -0400
From: [e-mail] (Guy Botero)

The effect you mentioned is the effect that rendering in a non-shadow mode
that does not take into account the location of intervining objects.  In
real life the second plane (in your example) would not have light on it
because the first plane is blocking the light (we call this effect casting
a shadow... silly of us isnt it.)  Anyway, thats the basic reason the
light shines "through" the first plane... it's like it's not there.



##

Subject: Resolve Depth
Date: Sun, 28 Jun 92 22:56:49 PDT
From: [e-mail]

I fixed a problem that was bugging be, and since I
haven't seen a discussion of it here before, I thought I'd
share the problem/solution.

I was trying to render a light fixture, which consisted of
a clear glass  globe surrounding a clear glass bulb.  I
modeled the bulb, globe, and the  fillament.  For the
fillament, I chose to use a tapered cylinder (tapered on
both top and bottom ends), and chose the fog attribute,
as well as making  it a light.  This has the effect of
creating a glowing mist, which is  what you see when you
look at a bulb, you don't see a discrete fillament (not
without sun glasses! :)  )

Anyway, the problem was after I played around with the
glass parameters, and got one I liked, I made both the
bulb and globe have the same attributes.  Both rendered
fine alone, but put one inside the other and the bulb
would turn almost black.  You could still see the glowing
fillament inside it, but otherwise it was a shiney black.
Ah, you noticed the word _shiney_.  Nooo, I didn't make
that mistake, both objects were non-shiney.

After screwing around, I finally clued in on the fact that
my resolve depth was still set to 8...you guessed it, the
inner bulb was beyond the resolving depth of the rays!
By increasing it to 10 the problem went away.

As I said, I haven't seen this sort of problem mentioned
before (in the past month I've been reading the list,
anyway!), so I wanted to mention it.

So, if next time you try to render something inside of
glass, and it comes out screwy, try setting your resolve
depth higher.  Not too high, as when I tried 16 I GURUed
every time (oh, all right, "system error", or whatever
CBM insists on calling it).

Doug Bullard


Was on CIS, now saving money on Portal!


##

Subject: Re: Professional Fonts in Imagine ??
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 92 10:06:36 GMT
From: uunet!bknight.jpr.com!yury@email (Yury German)

Hi Hannes (Hannes Heckner), in <[e-mail]> on Jun 24 you wrote:

: So everyone out there who has an idea of forming letters with these
: super edges please help me.

    Well there is a little trick... but before I tell you this one I
have to let you know that it requires mega power and mega memory.

    What you need to do is load in the old DTP program. Then what you
do is do the lettering there. Then you save at 300 DPI out to disk as an
IFF. You take that and bring it into IMAGINE and convert. You will get
letters with alot of points. They take about an hour to render. BUt the
look is amazing.
    _____________________________________________________________________
   |                                                                     |
   | Yury German                  yury@bknight                           |
   | Blue-Knight Productions      GENIE EMAIL: Blue-Knight               |
   | [phone]                (Graphic Design and Video Productions) |
   | [phone]                P.O. Box 985, Queens, New York, 11354  |
   |_____________________________________________________________________|



##

Subject: Brush Sequences
Date: Sat, 27 Jun 92 19:28 GMT
From: Gary Whiteley - Amiga Shopper <[e-mail]>

Mike C. writes:

>   Help!
>   I have Imagine 2.0, (the buggy version, original) and am trying
>   to get this brushmap seq to play on one of my objects....

Yes, I've had exactly the same problem! I was trying to animate a
sequence (because I was curious and was testing some other software
which renumbered image sequences from one format to another) and I
eventually came to the conclusion that this function wasn't working
correctly. I had the same kind of numbering problems as well.

In the end I gave up trying. As I live in the UK a call to Impulse
would have been too expensive and anyway, the last time I called them
about a problem I felt that I might as well not have bothered wasting
their precious time.

We live in hope that some of the bad things will be fixed - but it's
still my favourite 3D program on the Amiga!

Gary W.


##

Subject: Lissa
Date: Tue, 30 Jun 92 10:19:20 -0500
From: [e-mail] (PJ Foley)

Is "Lissa" available yet?  If so how much does it cost?  Is it worth it?
I have no real need for Lissaageuosusoosusous curves at all, but if it is
cheap enough, it may be worth it just for fun.

Thanks,
PJ Foley
Kinetic Dreams
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------#
| "My moral standing is lying down."                                      |
|         --Trent Reznor, NIN                    more to come             |
| "The problem with SynthBananas is that                                  |
|  you still have to peel them."                       maybe.             |
|        --Vacter                                                         |
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------#



##

Subject: Re: Brush Sequences
Date: Tue, 30 Jun 92 15:55:38 -0400
From: [e-mail] (Michael B. Comet)

>
>
>Mike C. writes:
>
>>   Help!
>>   I have Imagine 2.0, (the buggy version, original) and am trying
>>   to get this brushmap seq to play on one of my objects....
>
>Yes, I've had exactly the same problem! I was trying to animate a
>sequence (because I was curious and was testing some other software
>which renumbered image sequences from one format to another) and I
>eventually came to the conclusion that this function wasn't working
>correctly. I had the same kind of numbering problems as well.
>
>In the end I gave up trying. As I live in the UK a call to Impulse
>would have been too expensive and anyway, the last time I called them
>about a problem I felt that I might as well not have bothered wasting
>their precious time.
>
>We live in hope that some of the bad things will be fixed - but it's
>still my favourite 3D program on the Amiga!
>
>Gary W.
>
>

    Yes, well I called Impulse, and though they didn't say whether
it was a bug or not directly, they said I could send my disks in to get
a new version, (one with the working squash effect and so on), for free.
I should get my new disks fairly soon, so when i figure out whether or
not it works i'll post back to the list.  Too bad, it worked great in
1.1.

    Mike C.
    [e-mail]



##

Subject: space station
Date: Tue, 30 Jun 92 20:31:42 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Dan Drake)

I have put Steve's Space Station on Hubcap in the imagine/objects dir.

Sorry for the delay, but my computer was down.

dan.


##

Subject: Questions..
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 92 13:29 MET DST
From: [e-mail] (Pedro Dias)

Hi Y'all!
It's time for me to throw in a few questions aobut Imagine.

* I'm often finding me making the contours of an object in
  deluxe-paint for later extrusion in Imagine via the
  convert IFF/ILBM menu option. What gets to me, is that even
  when making the outlines with the thinnest line in Dpaint,
  the outline becomes like a closed path instead of simple
  drawn lines representing the contour.
  Is there any simple way to overcome this ?

* As a still-picture Imagine-creator, I usually find myself
  happy with making objects and then bringing them into stage
  for setup and rendering.
  The most common scenes are built up around 5-10 objects
  3-4 lamps, and a nifty camera-angle, and rendering in
  trace mode with 24-bit ILBM, no dither, hires overscan gives me a
  waiting period of approximately 13 hours (statistically).
  Are there any tricks and tips that could help me reduce
  the rendering time ?
  (My amiga 2000 is equipped with the A2630-board /4Mbs of
   32-bit wide RAM, and an extra 5 Mbs of normal fast/chip)

* Is there any way that one can combine different scenes for
  rendering while I'm away for the weekend/holdays?
  It's a shame not to leave the computer up and running while
  I'm away.

Those were the questions. A nice tip to those of you that like me cannot
afford extra viewing hardware :
Get hold of the Digiview program (NewTek), and convert your 24-bit
IFF's into Dynamic HI-Res pictures. This gives you an oppurtunity to
see your work in hires interlaced HAM mode, wich differs ALOT from the
nearest resolution (Hires laced 16 col/Lores laced HAM).

P.Dias, Sweden
[e-mail]


##

Subject: Phong bug?
Date: Tue, 30 Jun 92 22:00:46 PDT
From: [e-mail]

While trying to create an object in several different ways, I have run
across a 'bug' in the phong rendering system used in Imagine.

I was trying to create a axially symmetrical object.  I first tried
defining the axis, edges, and then swept the object with about 36
sides.  Phong shading was selected, and the object came out with
noticable facets on some of the sides (where my edges made corners
before sweeping).  Now, here's the wierd part:  If I made the same
object in FORMS (face it, sometimes SWEEP _is_ less hassle), the
mysterious facets did _not_ show up at all, even with the exact same
number of facets and edges!

Messages on CIS to Impulse resulted only in the suggestion to
"use more edges".  Subsequent splitting or fracturing of the
edges before sweeping did imake the phone shading work
correctly, but they never answered WHY the two apparently
identical objects, with identical attributes, rendered completely
differently.

My input for Imagine 3.0:  Allow a looooong render to be interrupted
and then resumed (as when I multitask and manage to crash).  I wasted
almost thirty hours of render time today when a PD program barfed.

Doug Bullard


##

Subject: Re: space station
Date: Wed, 1 Jul 92 9:33:24 CDT
From: "Scott Jones (Dr. Jones)" <[e-mail]>

>
> I have put Steve's Space Station on Hubcap in the imagine/objects dir.
>
> Sorry for the delay, but my computer was down.
>
> dan.
>
Hi Dan,

I looked this morn and could not find the Space Station.. :-(  Could you
tell me (us) what you named the file?

Thanks Buddy..
Scott Jones




##

Subject: trees, plants
Date: Wed, 1 Jul 92 21:36:46 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Kevin Kodama)

Are there any good tree and plant objects out there ?
I am looking for some *good* objects :-) the minimum quality would
have to be lightwaves palm tree and other tree (very detailed),
raydance style trees, or scenery animator trees. i have seen
the PD tree generator for sculpt, PPS's trees, and vista type trees,
none of which are of the quality i am seeking. Is this a job for...
Glen Lewis' TTTDDD ? Is generating decent trees a possibility for
either TTTDDD, or could a fractal tree generator ala scenery animator
be built into Lightwave or Imagine ?



[e-mail]


##

Subject: trees, plants
Date: Thu, 2 Jul 92 08:32:31 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Glenn M. Lewis ~)

>>>>> On Wed, 1 Jul 92 21:36:46 PDT, [e-mail] (Kevin Kodama) said:


Kevin> Are there any good tree and plant objects out there ?  I am
Kevin> looking for some *good* objects :-) the minimum quality would
Kevin> have to be lightwaves palm tree and other tree (very detailed),
Kevin> raydance style trees, or scenery animator trees. i have seen the
Kevin> PD tree generator for sculpt, PPS's trees, and vista type trees,
Kevin> none of which are of the quality i am seeking. Is this a job
Kevin> for...  Glen Lewis' TTTDDD ? Is generating decent trees a
Kevin> possibility for either TTTDDD, or could a fractal tree generator
Kevin> ala scenery animator be built into Lightwave or Imagine ?

    Hi, Kevin!

    I do know of one guy who used TTDDD (aka T3D) to create very
realistic plant life, but he didn't release his code that he used, to my
knowledge, even though he said he intended to.  His demonstration
rendering used to be on hubcap.  Right now, I can't remember his name or
the name of the picture.  Hold on, and I will search through my old
e-mail...

    I'm back!  :-)

    Hah!  I found it.

    His name is Caleb J. Howard, and his e-mail address is (was):
cbmtor![e-mail]

    He would be the one to ask about this.

                            -- Glenn


##

Subject: Phong shading and Glass
Date: Thu, 2 Jul 92 13:00:37 CST
From: [e-mail] (Isaac Guajardo Leal)

>>[stuff deleted]
>>
>>     Also, someone posted a few weeks ago about rendering glass that come
>> out with large black areas (where there is no black anywere near the
>> scene!) mainly because of the Phong option, why this happens ? what if i
>> want to render a very smooth glass object, zillions of faces ? and
>> eventhow i turn phong off i still get some black areas ! any ideas or
>> comments ... Thanks.
>>
>>         Isaac (Psycho) Guajardo
>>        [e-mail]
>>
>

Christopher Stevenson replies ...

[Stuff deleted]
>....  The "problem" isn't a problem at all. Most
>objects have edges, and objects (like drinking glasses, for example)
>often have sharp or highly-curved edges. I'd forgotten the obvious,
>and that in order to get the Phong interpolator to accurately approx-
>imate the surface normals of all the polygons in a scene, care must be
>taken - in this case, isolation of larger "body" polygons from sharp
>corners.I
>      \       |       /
>         \    |     /
>    --     +------+     __
>      --__ |      | __--
>           |      |            fig. 1  Phong interpolation around a
>    ------ +      + ------             corner, with isolation edges.
>           |      |
>    ------ |      | ------
>           |      |
>    ------ |      | ------
>
>This (is supposed) to represent the lip of a drinking glass, as seen
>in cross-section (before you sweep it, say). The "fan" of lines are
>the normal vectors that result when Phong interpolates across polygons.
>The +'s are points, joined by edges; notice how there are a pair of
>small, apparently-redundant edges just down from the top? These are
>isolating edges (polygons, once swept). They are exactly parallel with
>the larger edges (polygons) that would normally go to the top edge
>without them; they provide a small space over which the normals can
>"straighten up" and become perpendicular to the big polygons, as they're
>supposed to be. They needn't be very big at all, a unit or two. They MUST
>be exactly parallel with the edge they're intended to "interface" with the
>corner.  If these big polygons were the entire height of the glass
>then without them, the rendered glass would appear to have outward-
>curving walls (as far as the refraction is concerned) but the real geo-
>metry is still that of the glass. Light rays end up hitting surfaces at
>far higher angles than they're supposed to, and it appears that in Imagine
>when critical angles are achieved, the refracted ray is simply assigned
>the "ambient" lighting and the process stops. Hence, a lot of "black"
>where there shouldn't be any (it would be so nice if instead of terminating
>the ray, it was 100% reflected. This is what happens in reality).
>Maybe it's easiest just to say that
>the process has become confused. When rendered, by the way, this edge
>above has a fully-rounded "top" and straight sides.

[More stuff deleted]

>-render yourself happy
>The Electric Monk

    First of all thanks a lot to "The Electric Monk" 8-) and sorry if I
bothered someone by including his explanation again, but I think it
would be  very usefull to somebody that may have missed it.

   I did a test render of two glasses using an outline and sweeping it,
one as I have done it before (The logical way !?!?) and the other taking
into account the explanation above, both with glass attributes and Phong
shading on. Then I render both objects one beside the other in trace
mode. The result was incredible ... the first was a "black blob" as I
have experienced BUT the other Glass was what I have been trying to make
for a looong time, still there are some black areas particularly on the
vertical edges (the walls of the glass(?)) but there is a HUGE
difference between the two 8-) .... I hope that Impulse take this into
account for a future revision and improve the Phong algorithm.

         Isaac (PSYCHO) Guajardo
        [e-mail]
"The one who dies with the most toys wins!"


##

Subject: Videotapes for SFR
Date: Thu, 2 Jul 92 13:14:40 CST
From: [e-mail] (Isaac Guajardo Leal)

   Hi all - it seems that a lot of people is on vacation, I have noticed
a slowdown (?) on the message trafic. I need some help ... I am
rendering to tape with the Personal Single Frame controller and a
AG-7750 S-VHS tape deck, but I'm having a lot of problems buying tape
for that purpose. Do someone know of a good dealer for S-VHS Master
Broadcast tapes for single frame recording, that is very strong tapes
and (very important) 5 minutes maximum in lenght. In bulk format and
also in small quantities just for test driving them before spending more
money on them. I need them to be shipped to Texas ... have been using
(from best to worst) 3M, Panasonic, Ampex and Sony. But it's a pain
finding them. Any advice would be appreciated and thanks in advance.

          Isaac (PSYCHO) Guajardo
         [e-mail]
"The one who dies with the most toys wins!"


##

Subject: Animation speed on A3000
Date: Thu, 2 Jul 1992 16:50:00 -0500
From: Steven Joseph Chmura <[e-mail]>

I am considering purchasing an A3000.  Currently, my A500 is damn slow when
playing back 640x200x4 animations.  Even if I do page flipping (such as
in DPAINT's EXPANDED mode) I still get <10fps.

Will the A3000 32 bit path speed up the animations or is it slow due to DMA
bandwith problems.

Please advise!
:wq


##

Subject: Re: Animation speed on A3000
Date: Fri, 3 Jul 92 5:07:44 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Aaron Tucker)

> I am considering purchasing an A3000.  Currently, my A500 is damn slow when
> playing back 640x200x4 animations.  Even if I do page flipping (such as
> in DPAINT's EXPANDED mode) I still get <10fps.
>
If you can, use a res of 320x200. This speeds things up considerably, even
when you have large deltas.

> Will the A3000 32 bit path speed up the animations or is it slow due to DMA
> bandwith problems.
>
The A3000 will play back animations faster, if that's al you want to do. If you
plan to go to tape for a final output, I would not recommend an A3000. Get
yourself a used A2000, get Fusion Forty $1000 offer for thier 68040 accel.,
get at least 16MB of RAM, and pocket the rest of the cash that you saved.
The machine makes no difference when going to tape. A realtime lores or
wireframe preview and a few final frames from key areas in the animation are
all a client needs to see to make changes or approve for final output.

Juan Trevino
[e-mail]



##

Subject: RE: Hello?  and Broadcast questions.
Date: Thu, 9 Jul 92 9:36:39 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Dale R Rogers)

Forwarded message:
|From daemon Thu Jul  9 08:00 CDT 1992
|From: red river community college <[e-mail]>
|Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
|Subject: Hello?
|To: [e-mail]
|Date: Mon, 6 Jul 92 13:37:18 CDT
|X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
|
|I have not received any mail from the mailing
|list lately, so I am just posting a test message.
|
|Sorry if this bothers anyone.

    Didn't bother me.  I haven't received any mail lately either.  I
    was wondering if my mailer had gone flaky again or if news is slow
    these days.  Glad to see my mailer is working.

    I've been too busy at work to post any messages.  I read them
    though when I get the chance.

    While I'm here,  I have a number of questions.  They are about
    24 bit display and broadcast quality.  Currently I don't have
    a 24bit display device and I want to get one.  Everyone locally
    has been suggesting that I get DCTV as an inexpensive
    entry into 24bit output.  My question is:  If I intend to go
    to tape, does it matter what my display device is?  I mean when
    an image is sent to tape, is the 24bit definition being sent
    to the output device (tape), or is a copy of the screen
    being sent there?  In short is the image sent to tape dependent
    on the screen display device, or are they completely independent
    of one another? I guess I'm trying to figure out if DCTV will
    give me a Broadcast quality image to go to tape or if I
    will need a different device.  I read articles here and
    there saying that some production studios are rendering to DCTV
    and then sending the animations through a broadcast quality
    genlock to tape to go over the airwaves.

    I understand that broadcast quality involves color thresholds as
    well as signal quality.  I have ADPro which has a "Broadcast"
    operation to insure that my renderings all stay within NTSC
    standards of color levels.  Could I create my images in Imagine,
    tweek the values in ADPro, create and view the animations in
    DCTV, and then send them through a good genlock to 3/4 or 1"
    tape and call it broadcast quality?  Would it then go out over the
    airwaves without a problem?

    Also,  if I approach a production house as a freelance
    animator, will I be expected to deliver my animations already
    on 3/4 tape?  Will this be determined by the production
    house?  I've already seen a number of posting to this list
    by production houses so I figured this would be a good place to
    get some answers.  I'm trying to figure out what the minimum
    configuration is that I need to be able to market myself as an
    animator.  There are plenty of production houses out there already
    with all the toys that need freelance animators to help them get
    their projects out the door.  This is a need that I would like to
    fill.  So I want to know what kind of "package" do I need to be
    able to deliver my work in when approaching a studio.  Any
    feedback would be appreciated.

    Thanks.



       _____________________________^_____________________________
                                  __ __
                                ____ ____
       _____________________________ _____________________________
       dale r. rogers                Email:  ingr!b24a!camelot!dale
                                     Internet:
                                     [e-mail]

                                    .







##

Subject: Archives 20, 22, and 23 now available on hubcap
Date: Wed, 8 Jul 92 11:50:44 MST
From: [e-mail] (Marvin Landis)

Archive numbers 20, 22, and 23 are now available on hubcap.clemson.edu
(130.127.8.1) in the pub/amiga/incoming/imagine/text directory.  Number 20
covers articles posted from Feb. 6 - Feb. 26.  Number 22 covers articles posted
from May 16 - Jun. 6.  Number 23 contains articles posted from Jun. 6 -
Jun. 25.  As always if you have any problems with the archives, let me know.

Sorry I have not been keeping the archives up to date recently.  I have been
VERY busy for several months, and the list was going through a transition stage
so I was not very motivated to keep up the archives (actually, I was almost
ready to give up on the list for a while, since almost all the messages for a
while had nothing to do with Imagine, just problems with the list).  But now
that all that is solved, and the list is functioning smoothly again (thanks
Dave), I am trying to get caught up.  These archives bring things up to date,
with the exception of messages between Feb. 26 and May 16.  As you can tell,
archive 21 is non-existant.  When Steve was running the list, he was saving all
the articles, then sending them to me 100 messages at a time for archiving.
Well during the time Steve lost access to his MIT account, I did not receive
the articles from him, so I was not able to keep up with the archives and #20
was the last set of messages I received from Steve.  Of course many of the
messages during that time were list administration problems, so I don't think
we missed alot of Imagine related questions (and answers).  However, if anyone
saved the messages between Feb. 26 and May 16, and would be willing to send
them to me, I will sort through the messages and create archive #21.  This
problem should not occur again, as I am saving all the messages myself, and
will still be creating a new archive every 100 messages.  Archives 22 and 23
are the messages that have appeared on the list since Dave took over the list.
So things are back on schedule with the archives, I hope they are doing some of
you some good.
----------------------------
Marvin Landis
[e-mail]


##

Subject: Steve's Book in Cleveland?
Date: 09 Jul 1992 14:42:28 -0400 (EDT)
From: [e-mail] (michael neylon)

Is there anywhere in Cleveland (preferably West side) that I can get copy
of Steve's book?  The computer stores around me have such a WIDE selection
of Amiga books (ie 1 copy of the Rom Kernal manual, and thats all).  If not
is Steve's book available thru the net for a *small* discount...?
Thanks...
-Mike


##

Subject: Index of Refraction's
Date: Wed, 8 Jul 92 11:12:09 PST
From: [e-mail] (Kenny Sequeira)

Here are a few index of refractions for some gemstones.

Opal    1.44 - 1.46

Amber   1.54

Garnet  1.73 - 1.89

Cubic Zirconia  2.15  Did you not want to create a fake diamond.

[e-mail]


##

Subject: Re: Animation speed on A3000
Date: Sat, 4 Jul 1992 14:29:02 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Stephen Menzies)

[e-mail] (Aaron Tucker) writes:
>The A3000 will play back animations faster, if that's al you want to do. If you
>plan to go to tape for a final output, I would not recommend an A3000. Get
>yourself a used A2000, get Fusion Forty $1000 offer for thier 68040 accel.,
>get at least 16MB of RAM, and pocket the rest of the cash that you saved.
>The machine makes no difference when going to tape. A realtime lores or
>wireframe preview and a few final frames from key areas in the animation are
>all a client needs to see to make changes or approve for final output.

>Juan Trevino
>[e-mail]
>
The RCS Fusion Forty special is availible until july 10, 1992. They
extended it ten days at the wish of sseveral Users Groups that held
their meetings at the end of june. If anyone is interested (and
members of this list, the LWave list, and the DCTV list are eligable
too) contact Rishi at RCS : 514-871-4924 or fax:[phone] and
and get your name in as an interested party before this date. After
this date I no idea when or if there will be another special.
Please do not send me e-mail regarding this special unless someone
has problems in contacting RCS.
The board is availible for $995 US
There are several software deals availible with this offer including
all versions of Caligari, ImageMaster, Cando and they are all about
1/2 price.

-stephen

--
Stephen Menzies
#Internet: [e-mail]
#Fidonet : Stephen Menzies @ 1:167/265


##

Subject: Zooming Camera?
Date: Wed, 8 Jul 92 22:03:02 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Aragorn J Mallory)

Hey does anynoe out there know hwo to get the "focal length" of the Camera in
the stage editor to somthing other than what it is?  And can it be animated?

Aragorn.
I Imagine, Therefor I am! ---([e-mail])


##

Subject: ESSENCE is here?
Date: Wed, 8 Jul 92 22:53:29 -0400
From: [e-mail] (Michael B. Comet)

    Those who subscribe to avid should check out the new magazine
for this month.

    The inside leaf of the back cover has a full page add for Apex
Softwre Publishing's ESSENCE package.  Guess it's out?

    Perhaps Mr. Worley could drop a note on the list detailing
ordering instructions, and any other pertinent info.

               Michael Comet
               [e-mail]



##

Subject: Animation Journeyman
Date: Wed, 8 Jul 92 22:57:36 -0400
From: [e-mail] (Michael B. Comet)

    Anyone know anything about animation journeyman by hash
enterprises?  Better yet, does anyone here own it who could give a quick
review.  Better yet, does anyone own both that and imagine who could
give a review and compare it to imagine?

    I am getting a little tired of modelling smooth surfaces with
polygons, and am interested in the spline based approach.

    My basic questions are:  How much slower is it, does it trace
and scanline render, what type of brush map support does it have, how
decent is the modeler, how decent is the renderer, does it support
hierarchial animation, what formats does it output, and what other
features does it have that most polygon renderes don't?

    Thanks,

               Michael Comet
               [e-mail]



##

Subject: I need an IFF eye!
Date: Wed, 08 Jul 92 21:35:36 CST
From: [e-mail] (Michael Linton)

Hi all, I'm looking for a good (well even if it's not so good) IFF picture
of the human eye.  It know, it's s strange request, but I need it for my
head (not my head, the one I modeled).  Anyways, if you happen to have
something to fit that bill, could you PLEASE e-mail it to me?  I'd really
appreciate it.  It doesn't have to be 24bit, Hires, or Laced HAM will do.
Thanks in advance.

Mike


--
[e-mail] (Michael Linton)
The Draco Unix System, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada



##

Subject: Back on Track
Date: Thu,  9 Jul 92 17:48:50 PDT
From: [e-mail]

Howdy Everyone!  :-)

It appears that even though we weren't NOTIFIED that the systems would be
down during the two official "holiday" days at Unisys (July 6 and 7),
that they were in fact shut off. It appears that they are up and running
again now. I apologize for not being able to warn you in advance that
there would be no mail for a few days but I wasn't warned of it.
The next official shutdown will be the week of Christmas and I will be
certain to let everyone know in advance if there will be any
funny business going on.

While I have the editor firmly in hand here...I would like to publically
thank Marvin for updating the archives. I have gotten some mail from
List member and non-member readers alike asking about it, and
thanks to Marvin, the archives should be in tip-top shape.

If you wish to unsubscribe or subscribe, feel free to zap it to
[e-mail] again. Should be working fine now
although I will not be in the office to do the work until Monday
July 13.

Mr. Menzies, thank you for your information on the RCS offer, lots of
private mail questions have now been answered for me.  :-)

As of Monday, I will be calling the last few possible prize contributors
for the Imagine Contest (no...it ain't dead) and hopefully we will
be able to announce something this month.


Essense grows nearer....Steve Worley informed me that he is
working like a madman finishing up the product loose ends.
(A cool advertisement in this month's AVID magazine if you didn't see it.)

Are you getting tired of hearing me talk?   Me too.


Have a great weekend. Keep them barbeques fired up.

-Dave Wickard  [phone]       "Is Homer there?"
[e-mail]             "Homer who?"
[e-mail]           "ummm...Homer Sexual"
                                    -Bart calling Moe's Tavern


##

Subject: RE: Hello?  and Broadcast questions.
Date: Thu, 9 Jul 92 11:14:54 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Aaron Tucker)

>     Also,  if I approach a production house as a freelance
>     animator, will I be expected to deliver my animations already
>     on 3/4 tape?  Will this be determined by the production
>     house?  I've already seen a number of posting to this list
>     by production houses so I figured this would be a good place to
>     get some answers.  I'm trying to figure out what the minimum
>     configuration is that I need to be able to market myself as an
>     animator.  There are plenty of production houses out there already
>     with all the toys that need freelance animators to help them get
>     their projects out the door.  This is a need that I would like to
>     fill.  So I want to know what kind of "package" do I need to be
>     able to deliver my work in when approaching a studio.  Any
>     feedback would be appreciated.
>
    In my personal opinion, the only reason for a DCTV is the paint
package...for broadcast quality considerations, that is. DCTV has a smaller
bandwidth than 3/4", which is the minimum you want for broadcast quality
animations. Plus, if you want to go to SVHS, BetaCam, MII, 1", D2, or D3, you
are stuck with lower than broadcast bandwidth from DCTV.
    One board I could recommend is The Firecracker. Normally I would not
recommend this product, but it doesn't take a video slot, can be had new for
$800-900, and is supported by tons of graphic software, more so than any other
device. OpalVision looks excellent, but does not have software support as of
yet, other than thier own paint program. Of course, you'll also have to get
a genlock. So, after all that, you might as well buy a Toaster...but then
you're stuck with Composite and a shit of a 24bit paint package, though you
get a Switcher, lots of FX, and Lightwave to ease the pain.
    What I really recommend for just starting out, is find a video
production house that has a toaster with/without single-frame capability.
Make a deal with them for a specific dollar amount on each different frame
that is rendered..let's say, $2/frame. You charge your customers $400/sec for
standard flying logos or whatever. You both make a good profit. The customer
is happy because he didn't have to pay $1000/sec for somebody using a DDR
and Crystal 3D, you're happy because now you can buy more equipment, and the
video production house is happy because he didn't have to do squat to earn
his $150 bucks for that 2.5 sec Joe Bob's Ford anim at the end of all his
commercials now.
Don't worry about color previews. Give him a 30fps lores wireframe so they can
see the movement. And, show them a few 24bit stills so they can see the final
output quality.
If the video production house does not have a single frame recorder, invest
in a personal SFC. It is portable, so you can bring it in when you need it,
unlike the DQ-Taco which is an internal card.
Lastly, depending on how much storage the guy at the video house has, you
might want to invest in a CD-WORM or a Rewriteable Optical to bring in your
animations. You might spend 4x as much than a Syquest, but you get flawless
storage much cheaper. (600MB vs 44MB or 1.2GB vs 88MB) Get the drift?
Or, an external 200MB might do the trick for you...just make sure both
controllers support the RDB Structure.
    Anyways, that is enough ramblings....Oh, onel last thing. Make sure
it is agreed beforehand that any work you do, you retain the right to
distribute on a demo tape at any time without notice. Have this legally
drawn up...very important to cover yourself nowadays.
    Whoops, one more thing, public broadcast animations are not taxable,
internal use broadcasts, however, are. So, keep the IRS happy, but don't
overpay them.

Juan Trevino
[e-mail]

>        _____________________________ _____________________________
>        dale r. rogers                Email:  ingr!b24a!camelot!dale
>                                      Internet:
>                                      [e-mail]
>
>                                     .
>
>
>
>
>



##

Subject: MakeAnim or BuildAnim, where?
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 92 08:59:01 +0200
From: [e-mail] (Goeran Ehrsson)

Hi!  I've spent a few ours trying to find the utilities MakeAnim or BuildAnim
but with no success. I have searched fish-lists and ftp-sites (in scandinavia)
but could not find any of them. Are they not PD/ShareWare?
Could someone give a hint on where I could find them?
And maybe you could give us tips on how YOU assemble your animations?

- Goran

--
[e-mail]


##

Subject: Compositing pictures
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 1992 01:18 EDT
From: [e-mail]

I want to make an animation like those flyby animations NASA creates
to publicize their space probes. I'd like to use Imagine to model and
generate the probe and if possible the stellar background (if it can
be done accurately) but I'll also need frames generated by different
graphics programs such as Scenery Animator.

My question is this; what is the best image processing program to
use to combine pictures from several different programs. Is AdPro
better than Image Master? I've been leaning towards Image Master
because I've read that it has better compositing tools but more
people seem to like AdPro better.  Now I dont know which to buy.
Any advice would be appreciated.

                         Scott Corley

[e-mail]


##

Subject: Re: Toaster mail list?
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 92 16:14:36 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

> Could someone please point me to either a Toaster mail list or a Lightwave 3D
> mail list.

For the LightWave list, send requests to:
[e-mail]

For the Toaster list, you'll need to send mail to
[e-mail] with a *body* of:
subscribe toaster-list

> I got a Toaster a few days ago, and I would like to ask a few
> questions :)

Fire away.
%~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~%
%      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  %
% --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   %
%      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   %
%     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   %
%                                                                          %
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


##

Subject: Re: Compositing pictures
Date: Sat, 11 Jul 92 1:30:07 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Aaron Tucker)

> My question is this; what is the best image processing program to
> use to combine pictures from several different programs. Is AdPro
> better than Image Master? I've been leaning towards Image Master
> because I've read that it has better compositing tools but more
> people seem to like AdPro better.  Now I dont know which to buy.
> Any advice would be appreciated.
>
I highly recommend ImageMaster over ADPro for compositing. Imagemaster has
such a wide variety of options, it will astound you. Don't get me wrong, I
like ADPro a lot, but for compositing, it doesn't hold a candle to
ImageMaster, even with thier new FRED utility. The last few versions of
ImageMaster have incorporated support for ANIMS. It is SO EASY to do things
in ImageMaster.
I find that ADPro is a more solid program in terms of bugs, but any bugs in
ImageMaster get fixed right away. They also upgrade the program very often.
The upgrade price as of today is $20 per upgrade...or $100 for an upgrade
automatically sent to you each month for one year.

>                          Scott Corley
>
> [e-mail]
>
Juan Trevino
[e-mail]




##

Subject: Satellite Object Needed
Date: Sat, 11 Jul 92 11:36:19 PDT
From: [e-mail]

I am currently looking for a satellite object. I will mostly be using it
for reference in enhancing a satellite I am already building. Basically,
I need any kind of communications or defense satellite. If you know where
I might find one please let me know. Just about any object format is
acceptable (Imagine, Lightwave, Wavefront, etc).

Thanks in advance.


========================================================================
        DJ/VJ/Production/Computer Graphics
             \          /
              \   \    /      /
Sean Schur           \   \  /      /      "The feel of leather against
                \   \/      /         skin is a surprisingly
INTERNET: [e-mail]  \  /a\mpyr/         sensual experience."
      [e-mail]    \/   \  / ideo
Compuserve: 70731,1102            \/         - Special Agent Dale Cooper
========================================================================


##

Subject: ANIMBuild found
Date: Sun, 12 Jul 92 11:00:28 +0200
From: [e-mail] (Goeran Ehrsson)

I have now found the AnimBuild utility (thanx Chuck!).
I was "grepping" for AnimBuild on Fish-lists but with no success, the
reason was that AnimBuild is on Fish 428 under the name CyroUtils.
CyroUtils are four animation utilities from Cyrogenic Software, and
they are freely re-distributable.

ANIMBuild:   Interactive program where you pick a list of IFF pics
             and then click on Build and you will get an ANIM5 file.
ANIMInfo:    Displays information about an anim, #frames, resulotion etc.
SplitANIM:   Splits an animation into smaller pieces,
             good if you're short on memory.
CombineANIM: Combine several animations into one.

Interactive... I guess I will stick with Imagine's scripts anyway,
I have 1000+ frames to assemble.

- Goran

--
Goran Ehrsson    [e-mail]


##

Subject: dctv
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 92 20:56:44 EDT
From: [e-mail]

I have a question regarding 16 color pictures and ham.  Basically what I
would like to know is if a 16 color non-interlace picture would animate
faster then the same picture in HAM.  The reason I ask this is because I am
considering purchasing a DCTV unit and I am curious to know how well it will
animate for me.  I currently only have 3.5 meg of ram 1 meg chip 2.5 fast
and so I usually use RTAP for my animations which seem to run awfully slow.
Anyway thats the question someone please let me know because I would like to
get the DCTV soon and the answer to this question would pretty much seal my
decision.

Thanks,
Joe Cotellese



##

Subject: Re: dctv
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 92 13:53:25 -0400
From: Udo K Schuermann <[e-mail]>

[e-mail] (Joe Cotellese) asks:
>
> I have a question regarding 16 color pictures and ham.  Basically what I
> would like to know is if a 16 color non-interlace picture would animate
> faster then the same picture in HAM.

The best way to answer this would be by explaining what limits the speed
of animations:  volume of data going to Chip RAM.

A 320x200 HAM  (6 bit planes) requires (320x200x6)/8 bytes of information.
    = 48000 bytes per frame.
A 640x200 DCTV (4 bit planes) requires (640x200x4)/8 bytes of information.
    = 64000 bytes per frame.
A 640x200 DCTV (3 bit planes) requires (640x200x3)/8 bytes of information.
    = 48000 bytes per frame.

The deltas themselves are what really matters, but the above math should
demonstrate which animation formats should be roughly equivalent.  I forget
exactly what impact a high-res (640+) screen has on bus bandwidth vs. a
low-res (320) screen, but I recall there was something to consider.

A 640x200x3 DCTV animation will probably animate at a comparable rate to a
320x200 HAM.  I don't think it will be faster, though.  Someone correct me
if I'm wrong.

I hope this helps.  My own experience with DCTV is quite favorable,
although I admit I have not gotten anything significantly beyond 20 fps on
an accellerated Amiga 2000.

 ._.  Udo Schuermann     "If I went around calling myself emperor just because
 ( )  [e-mail]  some moistened bint lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd
 Seeking virtual memory   put me away!"         -- Monty Python's "Holy Grail"


##

Subject: Mask.lha
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 92 20:43:06 CST
From: [e-mail] (Michael Linton)

Hi all, a friend of mine just uploaded a picture called MASK.LHA to Hubcap .
It's in the directory pub/amiga/incoming/imagine/pics.  It's a picture done
by me (why else would I be telling you this?), and it's the winning picture
in the local Amiga Users group annual 3-D Graphics contest.  It's around
136K.  Anyways, if someone out there wants the pic, and doesn't have FTP
access, lemme know and I'll E-Mail it to you.

Mike



--
[e-mail] (Michael Linton)
The Draco Unix System, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada



##

Subject: Animation Journeyman
Date: Mon, 6 Jul 92 20:55:35 -0400
From: [e-mail] (Michael B. Comet)

    Does anyone out there use and own Animation Journeyman?  I am
thinking about purchasing it, since building spline based models
interests me more than imagine.  How much slower is it than imagine?
Can you ray trace and scanline?  (Shadows, reflections?)  How about
hierarchial animation.  ???

               Michael Comet
               [e-mail]



##

Subject: Essence is here?
Date: Mon, 6 Jul 92 20:51:53 -0400
From: [e-mail] (Michael B. Comet)

    Ah...you know the feeling....you look into your mailbox...rumage
through the junk mail......and behold!....Avid Magazine....your heart
skips a beat, and maybe you pulse quickens just a bit...

    Well......maybe not........

    Anyways, those of you who have a subscription may want to check
out the Inside Back Cover of the magazine.  It is a full page ad from
Apex Software Publishing for the new ESSENCE textures.  Looks nice!

    Thus, I assume they are now available?  Perhaps Steve Worley or
Glenn Lewis can drop a note on the list to let us know?

    Later,

               Michael Comet
               [e-mail]



##

Subject: Essence is here?
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 92 09:28:38 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Glenn M. Lewis ~)

>>>>> On Mon, 6 Jul 92 20:51:53 -0400, [e-mail] (Michael B. Comet) said:

Michael>     Anyways, those of you who have a subscription may want
Michael> to check out the Inside Back Cover of the magazine.  It is a
Michael> full page ad from Apex Software Publishing for the new ESSENCE
Michael> textures.  Looks nice!

Michael>     Thus, I assume they are now available?  Perhaps Steve
Michael> Worley or Glenn Lewis can drop a note on the list to let us
Michael> know?

    I will let Steve answer this question, since he is handling all
the marketing and distribution issues.  But I know that Essence is very
close to shipping.

    By the way... you are going to love it!

Disclaimer:  I am biased.  :-)

                            -- Glenn

P.S.  While I've got your attention, I would like to request that those
      of you who crank out some gnarly renderings or animations with
      Essence, that you place them on hubcap so I can see what kinds of
      things you use the package for.  Thanks.


##

Subject: Videotapes for single-frame'ing?
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 92 11:01:08 CST
From: [e-mail] (Isaac Guajardo Leal)

    I appologise for reposting this message, but when I did were
problems with the list and couldn't know if it was succesfully
delivered, Thanks.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Hi all - it seems that a lot of people is on vacation, I have noticed
a slowdown (?) on the message trafic. I need some help ... I am
rendering to tape with the Personal Single Frame controller and a
AG-7750 S-VHS tape deck, but I'm having a lot of problems buying tape
for that purpose. Do someone know of a good dealer for S-VHS Master
Broadcast tapes for single frame recording, that is very strong tapes
and (very important) 5 minutes maximum in lenght. In bulk format and
also in small quantities just for test driving them before spending more
money on them. I need them to be shipped to Texas ... have been using
(from best to worst) 3M, Panasonic, Ampex and Sony. But it's a pain
finding them. Any advice would be appreciated and thanks in advance.

          Isaac (PSYCHO) Guajardo
         [e-mail]
"The one who dies with the most toys wins!"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

P.S: I don't mix subjects within a message, but I don't want to waste on
a message that could be only a hoax (?) ... anyway, I just read a post
from NetNews about Imagine 3.0, the guy that posted it took it from
Impulse, as he said - Talking by phone with someone at Impulse was told
that Imagine 3.0 would be released by this fall and would have all that
Lightwave do, plus lot more, etc, etc ... that would be nice, there are
some features in Lightwave that would love to have in Imagine and would
not mind to spend another $100 bucks for the upgrade, since I would
never ever 8-| buy a Toaster - my personal opinion is that NewTek's way
of marketing sucks !!! ... Impulse, are you listening !.


##

Subject: Pool
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 92 10:06:40 PST
From: [e-mail] (Kenny Sequeira)

Hello, I have a backyard scene I'm rendering in Imagine everything comes out OK
except the swimming pool.

Should I use the distrubed texture or Waves or none?

Should I give the water transparency and Filter?

If anybody had rendered a pooll could use please help.  Thanks in advance.

Kenny


[e-mail]


##

Subject: Essence again
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 92 14:14:30 -0400
From: [e-mail] (BRANHAM,JOSEPH FRANKLIN)

I talked to a very bright and chipper fellow at Apex last eve. (Must've been
Steve.) He said that Essence would be shipping Friday and that he would
make an announcement and send us an order form Thursday here on the list.

I've got this trace of a graveyard that needs 12 meg to render because of
all of the marble brushes I'm using. I'd kill for a decent marble.

Moo
Frank Branham


##

Subject: lha converters?
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 92 15:08:28 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Thomas E. Smith [LORAL])

I was wondering if someone out there had an lha file converter so I can
view all those awesome pictures on hubcap. Thanks

                        Tom the Smith


##

Subject: Re: Essence again
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 92 9:34:43 MDT
From: [e-mail] (Steve Koren)

Frank Branham write:

> I've got this trace of a graveyard that needs 12 meg to render because of
> all of the marble brushes I'm using. I'd kill for a decent marble.

This brings up an interesting point: Imagine uses memory very poorly
when using brushmaps.  Lets say that you have 5 objects which all use
the same brushmap, which happens to be 500 Kb.  Imagine will load your
500 Kb brushmap 5 separate times into memory, rather than just loading
it once and using it for all 5 objects.

This gets real expensive, real quick.  I wish it loaded unique brushmaps
just once.

  - steve



##

Subject: Re: lha converters?
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 92 16:38:03 PDT
From: [e-mail]

Thomas E. Smith wants "an lha converter" so he can view pics.
Thomas: "lha" is not a file "format", it's a file librarian/
archiver/compressor. It is used on files of all kinds to make them
smaller (so they transfer between modem-capable systems faster) and
to allow multiple files to be packed into a single "archive" such
as a picture, plus some documentation, perhaps an icon, etc. etc.
What you need to find and mount onto your Amiga is a program called
"LHA" by Stefan Boberg.  This program will allow you to unpack
and thuse "use" (run, view, read, whatever) any nd all files you
find anywhere whose filenames end with either .LZH or .LHA. There
are a couple other programs which can handle this kind of compressed
file but LHA is the newest, fastest, and bestest.
So if you have FTP ability, search any of the popular Amiga-oriented
sites, such as hupcap.clemson.edu or wuarchive.wustl.edu and look
for LHA. It is commonly distributed with the name LHA132E.RUN which
is a self-unpacking version of it, needing nothing else to unpack.
Once you have found it, get it, download it, run it, install the
LHA program into your C: directory, read the documentation and type
LHA at a CLI/Shell prompt by itself in case you forget its commands.
You will still need some kind of picture viewer to deal with the
images that will come out of those .LHA files after you unpack them.
And that's a whole 'nuther story by itself. HOller if you ned help
on that aspect.
Harv
Moderator/Sysop: The Amiga Zone (on) The Portal Online System
A great dial-up commercial system for Amigoids. Call 1-408-973-9111
to signup or for more information.


##

Subject: Re: Mask.lha is definitely a 'WOW'
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 92 00:14:45 CST
From: [e-mail] (Michael Linton)

Always a rainbow <[e-mail]> writes:

> and I;d love to see a jpeg version of it.
> (hint??)


Well, your not going to see a 24bit version of it, if that's what your
getting at. :)  I don't have a 24bit card, and there for know what it's
like to see these pictures that I cannot display on my machine.  Therefor, I
rendered it to the lowest common resolution.  (well almost).  Sorry. Yeesh,
give a 16 year old kid a break eh?! :)  TTYSS



--
[e-mail] (Michael Linton)
The Draco Unix System, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada



##

Subject: Brush wrap on ground
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 92 11:38:27 +0200
From: [e-mail] (Catherine Simon)

Howdy to yall!

I'm new to Imagine so please bear with me.

One of the first things I tried to do, was wrap a brush (repeating)
on to the ground, but try as I might I couldn't get it to work.

I just tried (again) Quickrendering the ground with a brush wrap, and all I get
is a plain old blank ground, no brush in sight! I've checked the x and z axes,
and they are correctly lined up with the ground plane
(I'm using 2.0 so Imagine does this automatically).

What I finally ended up doing, is using a plain old plane for my ground.
When I do this my brush wraps show up just fine.

So what gives??

BTW, what advantage is there to using Imagine's built in ground?



##

Subject: Corrupted archives on hubcap
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 92 12:28:49 +0200
From: [e-mail] (Catherine Simon)

It seems to me like some of the object archives on hubcap are corrupt.

I've tried decompacting the files right after FTPing them (in binary mode
of course) and I get CRC errors etc. I've also tried transferring the
archives to my Amiga and then using lha on them, still no go!

Here is a list of the files on hubcap that seem to have problems :

-rw-r--r--  1 ftp          6547 Mar  5 22:36 floodlightobj.lzh
-rw-r--r--  1 ftp         37402 Mar  5 22:36 floor_lamp_obj.lzh
-rw-r--r--  1 ftp        501667 Feb  5 07:05 fonts.lha
-rw-r--r--  1 ftp        319184 Dec 18  1991 amiga1000.lzh
-rw-r--r--  1 ftp         87736 Mar  5 22:36 pine_tree_obj.lzh
-rw-r--r--  1 ftp        140475 Mar  5 22:36 imagine_tree.lzh
-rw-r--r--  1 ftp        130318 Mar  5 22:09 potted_plant.lzh
-rw-r--r--  1 ftp         87068 Feb  3 06:42 p38obj.lha

Some other files which are only on the european mirror of hubcap (ftp.uni-kl.de)
seem to have the same symptoms (the names might not be exactly the same):

Aircar.lzh
ImagineObjects1.lzh
ImagineObjects3.lzh

Maybe someone can confirm that these archives are bad, and pull them off the
servers?


##

Subject: Re: lha converters?
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 92 07:48:59 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

> So if you have FTP ability, search any of the popular Amiga-oriented
> sites, such as hupcap.clemson.edu or wuarchive.wustl.edu and look
> for LHA.

Does anyone have or know of a LHA unarchiver for unix systems (ie. source).
I have a unix version of lharc but that ofcourse doesn't work with .lha
files.
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  |
| --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   |
|      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   |
|     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   |
|                                                                          |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


##

Subject: Re: Brush wrap on ground
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 92 08:07:22 -0400
From: [e-mail] (Michael B. Comet)

>
>
>Howdy to yall!
>
>I'm new to Imagine so please bear with me.
>
>One of the first things I tried to do, was wrap a brush (repeating)
>on to the ground, but try as I might I couldn't get it to work.
>
>I just tried (again) Quickrendering the ground with a brush wrap, and all I get
>is a plain old blank ground, no brush in sight! I've checked the x and z axes,
>and they are correctly lined up with the ground plane
>(I'm using 2.0 so Imagine does this automatically).
>

    Actually, this is your mistake, Imagine will "mostly" do this
right, except for ground planes.  The problem is the axis of the ground
is the same as an axis for a primitive plane....even though the plane is
90 degress off!  See below:


>What I finally ended up doing, is using a plain old plane for my ground.
>When I do this my brush wraps show up just fine.
>
>So what gives??
>
>BTW, what advantage is there to using Imagine's built in ground?
>
>
>

    Okay, the only way to do this is to rotate the brushmaps axis by
90 degrees on the X-axis.  The problem is you can't rotate the grounds
axis since it's a "special" object.  So, add your brushmap and then
before you look at it with "edit axis", choose the transform axis from
the brushmap menu, and set it's alignment to either 90 or -90 on X.
Really doesn't matter unless you care if your map will be "backwards"
for something like a logo, in which case choose -90 I think.

    Select perform.  Now rescale it in edit axis mode so that your
brushes Y axis intercepts the ground and so on just like it looks for a
primitive plane, only from the top view, not the front view.

    Then repeating and all that junk will work like normal.

    The main advantage i see is :

        A]  It's infinte....

        B]  It probably takes up less ram and less time to
render ?  (maybe not..)

        C]  In scanline, reflective object WILL approximatly
reflect both the sky and GROUNDS!  Yes, it won't be a "true" reflection,
but for the most part, they do alright.

    mike c.
    [e-mail]




##

Subject: Short run video tape source wanted.
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 92 08:01:56 EST
From: Adam Benjamin <[e-mail]>

Last week I saw a post here (I think, or was it the DCTV list?) asking
about sources for bulk 5 min VHS tape for recording animation on.
I never saw any replies to that message and I am wondering the same thing.
Where is a good place to get short (I would like 15-30 min) VHS blank
tapes?
Thanks,
[e-mail]
** THIS SPACE CLEARED BY THE .SIG VIRUS KILLER **



##

Subject: Re: Corrupted archives on hubcap
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 92 8:11:31 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Doug Dyer)

> It seems to me like some of the object archives on hubcap are corrupt.
>
> I've tried decompacting the files right after FTPing them (in binary mode
> of course) and I get CRC errors etc. I've also tried transferring the
> archives to my Amiga and then using lha on them, still no go!
>
> Here is a list of the files on hubcap that seem to have problems :
>
> -rw-r--r--  1 ftp          6547 Mar  5 22:36 floodlightobj.lzh
> -rw-r--r--  1 ftp         37402 Mar  5 22:36 floor_lamp_obj.lzh
> -rw-r--r--  1 ftp        501667 Feb  5 07:05 fonts.lha
> -rw-r--r--  1 ftp        319184 Dec 18  1991 amiga1000.lzh
> -rw-r--r--  1 ftp         87736 Mar  5 22:36 pine_tree_obj.lzh
> -rw-r--r--  1 ftp        140475 Mar  5 22:36 imagine_tree.lzh
> -rw-r--r--  1 ftp        130318 Mar  5 22:09 potted_plant.lzh
> -rw-r--r--  1 ftp         87068 Feb  3 06:42 p38obj.lha
>
> Some other files which are only on the european mirror of hubcap (ftp.uni-kl.de)
> seem to have the same symptoms (the names might not be exactly the same):
>
> Aircar.lzh
> ImagineObjects1.lzh
> ImagineObjects3.lzh
>
> Maybe someone can confirm that these archives are bad, and pull them off the
> servers?

I can't confirm the mirror, but here at hubcap there is a CRC problem
unarchiving them using either lha or lharc.  Has anyone unpacked them
without problems? If not I'll remove them and those that submitted
them could please re-submit them?

Thanks,
    Doug
    [e-mail]



##

Subject: Re: lha converters?
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 92 8:32:59 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Steve Davis)

Mark Thompson
>
> > So if you have FTP ability, search any of the popular Amiga-oriented
> > sites, such as hupcap.clemson.edu or wuarchive.wustl.edu and look
> > for LHA.
>
> Does anyone have or know of a LHA unarchiver for unix systems (ie. source).
> I have a unix version of lharc but that ofcourse doesn't work with .lha
> files.

Since there probably isn't a UNIX LHA unarchiver, I think we should
limit uploads to LZH compression.  This may mean a few extra bytes
for each file, but I refuse to spend the time downloading something
over a modem unless I know a) that the archive is not corrupted,
and b) what is in the archive.  Since hubcap is notorious for
screwing up archives, I think it is insane to expect people to
blindly spend time downloading huge .LHA files from UNIX machines
only to find out that the originals were corrupted or don't contain
the advertised files.

Stratocaster
--
  Steve Davis  |    Contact me at ...            | The Boarding House BBS!
               | Internet:  [e-mail]    | 9600 baud (v.32/v.42)
               | FidoNet:    Steve @ 1:295/3     | America: 913-827-0744


##

Subject: Re: lha converters?
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 92 10:03:56 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Virtually Here)

Steve Davis
>
> Mark Thompson
> >
> > > So if you have FTP ability, search any of the popular Amiga-oriented
> > > sites, such as hupcap.clemson.edu or wuarchive.wustl.edu and look
> > > for LHA.
> >
> > Does anyone have or know of a LHA unarchiver for unix systems (ie. source).
> > I have a unix version of lharc but that ofcourse doesn't work with .lha
> > files.
>
> Since there probably isn't a UNIX LHA unarchiver, I think we should
> limit uploads to LZH compression.  This may mean a few extra bytes

Ah, but there is, and it works wonderfully.

If anybody wants it, it is on lysator.liu.se in the pub/amiga/LhA directory as
unixlha.tar.Z.

Some of us are stuck with places that only have 2400 baud modems, so the
difference LhA makes on a file is a big one. ;-)

Besides, most archives will look corrupt if you try and list them (lharc l
file), and you can list LhA files with Lharc.

    ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
   //  Real Life: Scott Ellis             //WARNING: This SigFile Warps //
  //  IRC: ScottE                        //          Space and Time in //
 //  Internet: [e-mail] //           Its Vicinity.    //
////////////////////////////***Picard/Riker in '92***//////////////////


##

Subject: Impulse Address?
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 92 13:33:30 -0400
From: Udo K Schuermann <[e-mail]>

I need to upgrade my December '91 version of Imagine 2.0 but for
some reason I have it in my head that Impulse moved not long ago.
Does anyone have their current address or can verify the one
that's in the Imagine 2.0 book via email, please?

Thank you VERY much!

 ._.  Udo Schuermann     "If I went around calling myself emperor just because
 ( )  [e-mail]  some moistened bint lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd
 Seeking virtual memory   put me away!"         -- Monty Python's "Holy Grail"


##

Subject: Re: lha converters?
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 92 21:32:04 +0300
From: Fishman M. Shmuel <[e-mail]>

On Jul 16,  8:32am, Steve Davis wrote:

: Mark Thompson
: >
: > > So if you have FTP ability, search any of the popular Amiga-oriented
: > > sites, such as hupcap.clemson.edu or wuarchive.wustl.edu and look
: > > for LHA.
: >
: > Does anyone have or know of a LHA unarchiver for unix systems (ie. source).
: > I have a unix version of lharc but that ofcourse doesn't work with .lha
: > files.
:
: Since there probably isn't a UNIX LHA unarchiver, I think we should
: limit uploads to LZH compression.  This may mean a few extra bytes

You can get LHA for unix at:
grind.isca.uiowa.edu:unix/arc-progs/lha-1.00.tar.Z

--
Fishman M. Shmuel  |  [e-mail]  |  FMS@irc  |  Back to stay !
-------------------+---------------------------+-----------+----------------
"PowerUser -- He who knows, respects and uses the Power"
                                                -- Book of the Energotics


##

Subject: Re: Mask.lha is definitely a 'WOW'
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 92 13:30:42 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Bob Lindabury, SysAdm)

rutgers!bbs.draco.bison.mb.ca!linton (Michael Linton) writes:

> Well, your not going to see a 24bit version of it, if that's what your
> getting at. :)  I don't have a 24bit card, and there for know what it's
> like to see these pictures that I cannot display on my machine.  Therefor, I
> rendered it to the lowest common resolution.  (well almost).  Sorry. Yeesh,
> give a 16 year old kid a break eh?! :)  TTYSS

Ok..we will give you a break.  However, you don't need a 24bit board
to render 24bit images.  If the image looks good in HAM, (which I use
for previews alot) then you just change your rendering subproject to
the 24bit render and you get a great 24bit image that is much better
than the ham image.  Of course you can view this with the show
command which basically gives you an Amiga displayable version.
There is no reason I can think of not to render and distribute 24bit
images (in JPEG or compressed format).  There are several PD
converters out there so anyone can convert the image to thier own
display.  Keeping the original 24bit means the best possible
conversion.

-- Bob

 The Graphics BBS  908/469-0049  "It's better than a sharp stick in the eye!"
 ============================================================================
  InterNet: [e-mail]                | Raven Enterprises
      UUCP: ...rutgers!bobsbox!graphics!bobl      | 25 Raven Avenue
    BitNet: bobl%graphics.rent.com@pucc           | Piscataway, NJ 08854
    Home #: 908/560-7353                          | 908/271-8878


##

Subject: Sharp and Join
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1992 14:10:58 -0600
From: HURTT CHRISTOPHER MICHAEL <[e-mail]>

    Is there any work around for joining 2 objects that have sharp edges?
Whenever I join the objects all the edges go back to Phong, and I don't want
to have to change them back. Right now I'm just grouping the objects, but since
the object is going into the Cycle Editor I'd like to have just the grouping
it needs. Any ideas?

    Chris Hurtt


##

Subject: Re: lha converters?
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 92 11:24:16 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Doug Dyer)

>
> Mark Thompson
> >
> > > So if you have FTP ability, search any of the popular Amiga-oriented
> > > sites, such as hupcap.clemson.edu or wuarchive.wustl.edu and look
> > > for LHA.
> >
> > Does anyone have or know of a LHA unarchiver for unix systems (ie. source).
> > I have a unix version of lharc but that ofcourse doesn't work with .lha
> > files.
>
> Since there probably isn't a UNIX LHA unarchiver, I think we should
> limit uploads to LZH compression.  This may mean a few extra bytes
> for each file, but I refuse to spend the time downloading something
> over a modem unless I know a) that the archive is not corrupted,
> and b) what is in the archive.  Since hubcap is notorious for
> screwing up archives,

I really doubt that its hubcap messing up the compressions.  There are a lot
of factors involved from our own compressing to uploading.  There is not
one ftp site I havent had at least one problem with an archive.

 I think it is insane to expect people to
> blindly spend time downloading huge .LHA files from UNIX machines
> only to find out that the originals were corrupted or don't contain
> the advertised files.

I have an lha on hubcap.  You should be able to find source code and makefile
by trying
        archie lha

and you will get a list of sites and directories where a match was made.  Thats
how I got mine.  The makefiles are generally very complicated to handle different
systems but its not really that bad.

I also have lharc, but lha pretty much obsoletes it.  I suggest compression methods as
follows:

    LZH    (since both lha and lharc handle it)
      JPEG

Ill post where to find lha if noone has any luck (off hand I have no recollecton
where I pulled it).


##

Subject: Re: lha converters?
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1992 12:18:20 -0400
From: Mike Taylor <[e-mail]>

Steve Davis writes:
> Since there probably isn't a UNIX LHA unarchiver, I think we should
> limit uploads to LZH compression.

I am sure that there is a Unix version of LHA.  In fact, I'd be willing
to bet that it is the original version and that the Amiga version is a
port of it.  I will take a look around on the nets, when I get time, and
see what I can come up with.  I will post a message if I find it.

                                                   /\/\ike Taylor
                                       [e-mail]



##

Subject: Highlights on objects
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 92 15:10:12 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Serge Ah Hee)

Good Day!
    I was playing around with Caligari 2... What a deception. I must agree
that the 3D environment is incredible, but the modeler and animation suck big time. I guess I'm too pampered with Imagine. Anyways, is there anyway of getting the nice highlights that Caligari 2 produces in Imagine. I know that Caligari does not use raytracing, still like some of its results.


##

Subject: Re: lha converters?
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 92 10:30:52 -0700
From: "mark w. davis  DTN 548.8749" <[e-mail]>

There is a unix version of lha.  I recall seeing it in
one of the source newsgroups.  I cannot remember which
one but you might want to check the misc.sources or
unix.sources (or whatever) archives.  I will see if
I can locate them, also.

mark


##

Subject: Re: Highlights on objects
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 92 21:44 PDT
From: [e-mail] (David Tinnyo)

>> Good Day!
>>        I was playing around with Caligari 2... What a deception.
>> I must agree that the 3D environment is incredible, but the modeler
>> and animation suck big time. I guess I'm too pampered with Imagine.
>> Anyways, is there anyway of getting the nice highlights that Caligari 2
>> produces in Imagine. I know that Caligari does not use raytracing, still
>> like some of its results.

I think you need to use Caligari a little more before you put down its
modeler and animation.  Actually, I'm surprised what you said about the
modeler when you compare it to Imagine.  The point editing features of
Caligari alone are very powerful and at the same time quite intuitive.
When I use Imagine's modeler(s) I always have the feeling that I'm doing
three 2D drawings and trying to match them up to get the 3D (which is
pretty much true).  In Caligari, I feel like I'm reaching into the screen
and manipulating things.   And the fact that C2 has multi-point polygons
makes it very easy to see exactly what you've done, something that is
not true with a moderately complex Forms object.  With all those little
triangles, you pretty much HAVE to use the solid render and wait for
the SLOW refreshes.  C2 shows those manipulations in real time.

The animation side is similar:  I think the visible paths for IM
are a poor substitute for real-time placement of objects for keyframing.
I've found that paths are only a win for a circular motion, but an
animation that just contains orbiting objects can get dull REAL fast.
When you need to do arbitrary spline motions, combined with rotations,
real-time adjustment of keyframes is the only way to go.  If you've
got a background in non-computer animation of real 3D objects (like
clay animation) this is a natural way to do things.

But, I do think that C2 needs to put hierarchical animation support
into its next release.  This is just inexcusable, since the modeler
supports hierarchies.  And the damn hierachy traversal buttons are
right there in the user interface for the animation module!!

About the nice highlights that C2 produces:  I believe this is due to
the Metal shader, which uses a lighting model that is better than Phong
for Metallic and Glass objects.  I don't know of any other Amiga renderer
that uses this, but it works beautifully in C2.

Don't get me wrong, I think Imagine is really powerful, but it just takes
too much WORK, which is something I got my Amiga to AVOID. :-)

** David E. TinNyo **                           ** [e-mail] **
"What is called politics is comparatively something so superficial and
 inhuman, that, practically, I have never fairly recognized that it
 concerns me at all." -- Henry David Thoreau



##

Subject: Re: Animation Journeyman (very long)
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 92 08:58:14 EDT
From: Mark Thompson <[e-mail]>

Michael B. Comet writes:
>     Anyone know anything about animation journeyman by hash
> enterprises?

I have a compilation of information on it that I have been
saving. Hope this helps.....
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
|      `       '        Mark Thompson                 CONCURRENT COMPUTER  |
| --==* RADIANT *==--   [e-mail]        Principal Graphics   |
|      ' Image `        ...!uunet!masscomp!mark       Hardware Architect   |
|     Productions       [phone] [phone]   & General Nuisance   |
|                                                                          |
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

                   +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Well I just got off the phone with someone at Hash Enterprises so
here is the latest I know about Journeyman. It has already been
discussed that Jman uses spline patches rather than polygons. But
the latest version directly renders these patches rather than
internally converting to polygons. This allows for scene complexity
not achieveable with any other 3D package as well as eliminating
the rough silohette produced by polygonally interpolated surfaces.
Scenes that would require 300,000 polygons are easily handled by
Jman without the normally associated memory burden. Also, as Ken
Baer mentioned, the animation capabilities have been greatly expanded.

In the rendering realm, both scanline and ray-tracing are possible.
Surface textures that are available include wave, fractal noise,
algorithmic (bricks, check, etc), bump, and image mapping. You can also
add specular reflection, shadows, and transparency. These are all
available regardless of rendering mode. When ray-tracing, you add
true reflections, crisper shadow generation, hairy surfaces,
transparency mapping, and other features. I don't know why you
can't do transparency mapping in scanline mode, but the hairy surfaces
sounds great.

A demo disk is supposedly in the making but not yet available and there
is still no printed literature. I was told that if you have access to
P-LINK they have many demo images and animations as well as a product
description. Would someone like to grab these and either post them or
upload them to an ftp site? The program costs $500 and it is still
only available through Hash Enterprises (rather annoying).

Hash can be reached at [phone]
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Mark Thompson                                                           |
|  [e-mail]                                                  |
|  ...!{decvax,uunet}!masscomp!mark   Designing high performance graphics  |
|  [phone]                      engines today for a better tomorrow. |
+------------------------------------------------------------------------- +
Article 44205 of comp.sys.amiga:
Path: masscomp!dali.cs.montana.edu!ogicse!pdxgate!parsely!percy!nosun!qiclab!baer
From: [e-mail] (Ken Baer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Journeyman V1.1 (was Re: Imagine)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 16 Dec 90 07:25:50 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Organization: Animators Anonymous, Portland, Or.
Lines: 40
Posted: Sat Dec 15 23:25:50 1990

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Udo K Schuermann) writes:
>>Definately check out JourneyMan, it is the only 3D
>>package to use spline surface objects for fantastic organic animation
>>control.
>
>Could you elaborate on this?  I won't have a chance to check out
>JourneyMan until perhaps early next year.  What are "spline surface
>objects" and what is "organic animation control"?

We call this 'Patch based modeling.'  This means 3D objects are created
with curved surfaces, and not polygons, though a patch can be flat and
have sharp edges, so mechanical objects can also be modeled.  The Journeyman
interfaces use a special kind of spline curve that has control points
on the curve (unlike B-splines), with tension and bias control.  What
does this mean, it means that complex objects (with organic curves) like
faces and muscle-bound chests etc. are much easier to make.  And since
they are made out of true curves, closeup shots don't reveal unsightly
polygon edges. :-)  It also means that objects take up much less disk
space, and memory.

For motion control, there are two level, relative and absolute motion.
Relative motion is for character motions like walks, jumps and is handled
by the Action module.  It does 3 kinds of motion, skeletal actions,
muscle morphs, and spine morphs (which can be combined).  And, in
Version 1.1 (which is now shipping), are controlled by channels (time graphs)
and not keyframes.  In plain English, this means that you can bend, twist,
and morph with very smooth and natural motion control.  For absolute
motion, the Direction module is used to set up the final animation.
It uses spline based paths, also with channel control (instead of keyframes).
In short, Journeyman goes beyond what you can do with simple keyframed
animation.

> ._.  Udo Schuermann        "How is American beer similar to making love in
> ( )  [e-mail]    a canoe?" -- "Both are f***ing close to water."


--
    //    -Ken Baer.  Programmer/Animator, Hash Enterprises / Earthling
  \X/     Usenet: [e-mail]  or  PLink: KEN BAER
         "What?!? Sore again?" -- Bugs Bunny to Yosemity Sam



The Journeyman object format wouldn't be much good for you unless your
ray tracer is patch based (as opposed to polygon based).  We convert our
object to bezier patches at rendertime.  Before that, they are made up of
3D splines, which are our own mutation of the Catmul-Rom splines.  Our
spline is worth some major money, so I don't think we're going to give
our format away for now.  It's such a different animal than polygonal objects
that it's not really compatable with them.

Journeyman also requires either an A2500 or an A3000 with 3Meg minimum.
It comes with a full featured patch based modeler, medium featured paint
program, relative motion editor (Action) which supports armature motion,
muscle motion, and spine motion (these last 2 would be REAL hard with
polygons!), armature modeler (Character) with algorithmic texture interface,
absolute animation editor (Direction) with channel based motion and
lighting attributes (animation can be ptted over time rather than
key framed), and finally a ray tracer and a z-buffer renderer.

The character animation features of the two programs are quite different.
Journeyman is designed primarily for character animation (which was my
point in the previous message). It is our second character animation
program, our first was Animation:Apprentice (which was the first 3D
animation program for Amiga, it predated Videoscape).  Apprentice used
key frame based armature motion on characters, much the same way Imagine
does.  Our objects used a topological modeling method called Voxels, and
we used stick figures for reference.  We call the motion you put on a
character, like a walk, a relative motion, and what direction he's walking
an absolute motion.  Apprentice had both.

Journeyman takes a major leap beyond that.  You have much finer control
over the motion using channel graphs.  You start by making the key frame
poses, then you can go into the channel editor and change the transition
with a spline curve over time.  This gives the motion a much more natural
feel that cannot be achieve with simple key framing.  But beyond that,
Journeyman has 2 other kinds of relative motion; muscle morphing and
spine morphing.  Muscle morphing allows you to the modify the object's
spline control points (you can bend and stretch the curves that make up
the object). You even have channel control over this (don't ask me
how this works).  Spine motion is my favorite, you can build a spine
in the object, and then bend the spine on its control points and the rest
of the object bends around it.  It works just like a human spine.  You
couldn't do that with a polygon based system.

>Another word that seems to be getting a lot of use here in this thread is
>"organic".  Both folks from Impulse and Hash seem to make amplbe use of this
>term.

We've used this term from te beginning in 1987.  What we mean by "organic"
is natural, as one would find in nature, and non-mechanical.  A dolphin
is organic, and F-18 is mechanical.  You CAN make organic shapes out of
polygons, but, in my opinion, 8 cubic patches beat out 10,000 polygons
anyday! Even with phong shading, polgonal objects have a faceted edge
when you move the camera close.

Article 301 of comp.sys.amiga.graphics:
Path: masscomp!think.com!spool.mu.edu!samsung!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!dali.cs.montana.edu!ogicse!pdxgate!parsely!percy!qiclab!baer
From: [e-mail] (Ken Baer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.graphics
Subject: Journeyman info
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 11 Feb 91 20:08:53 GMT
Organization: QIC Laboratories/SCN Research of Tigard Oregon
Lines: 135

I have been receiving countless repeated requests for information on
Animation:Journeyman, so I decided to post it here.  I hope this information
is useful and answers some of your questions.  Apologies to the net.gods,
and those of you who believe information about commercial products
posted by their vendors is blatent advertising, hit your <N> key now.
------------------------------------------------------------------
            Animation:Journeyman
            --------------------

   Journeyman is made up of six executable modules, Sculpture, Painter
(that integrates with Sculpture), Character, Action, Direction, and Render.

Sculpture
---------
Modeler:
- The interface uses cubic spline curves to build 3D cubic patches rather than
vectors
   and polygons.
- You can adjust the 3D curved surfaces with simple and intuitive mouse
   operations.
- Full tension control is provided to give you that fine control that today's
   professional demands.
- Hard edges and sharp points make it possible to construct mechanical objects
   in addition to organic objects.
- Autosculpting allows you to build complex shaped from simple front and
   side views.
- Grouping and Hide functions allow you to work on specific parts of the
   object without unnecessary redrawing.
- The two viewing windows allow you to look at the object from any two
   views at the same time.

Painter:
- Allows you to quickly render objects in as shaded polygons.
- Common paint functions include freedraw, linedraw, eclipse, fill, brush
   operations, and several other functions, all with DPaint keyboard
   equivalents.
- Any 32 color brush can be decaled onto an object at any angle and at any
scale.
- Loads and saves in IFF files.

Character
---------
- You can design and build articulated figures.
- Load segment shapes that you created in the Sculpture module, and assign
   heirarchy, attributes (color, reflectivity, transparency, index of
refraction, etc.)
- You can display any segments in either curved mode or bounding box mode,
   making it easier to do general placement, and fine tuning placement.
- Like Apprentice, Character supports sub-figures, and figure substitution
   (being able to layer whole figures, not just objects, e.g. using a fully
   articulated hand for different characters and only making it once.
- An algorithmic texture interface is provided.  Texures such as wood, marble,
mottled,
  checker, bumpy, etc. can be modified and tested in this interface.


Action
------
- This is where you to design relative motion for figures and objects.
- It allows you to create three basic kinds of motion for your characters and
   objects; skeletal actions, muscle morphing and spine morphing.  Skeletal
   actions involve moving the individual segments of a character around their
   respective pivots.  You would use this kind of action for walking, jumping,
   and general actions that involve multi-segment motion.  Muscle morphing
   allows you to take individual control points in the segments and tweak them
   over time.  This is useful when you just want to have a small part of an
   object change, or for action like biceps bulging.  And finally, spine
morphing
   gives you much more control and power over changing the shape of an object or
   character.  You create a reference spine when you design the object or
character
   in the Sculpture module.  Then bend the spine inside the object as you would
   with a real spine.
- When in the spine mode, you bend the spine at its control points, and the
   other points in the object will bend with it.
- You have full 3D directional control, so you can even twist objects with
   spine morphing.
- Spine morphing can work with individual segments, or the character as a
   whole.
- Of course, you can combine all three kinds of motion in a single action.
- All actions can now be refined with time graph editing (channels).

Direction
---------
- Direction is where you bring all the elements of Journeyman together to
   define the final animation.
- You can create motion paths for your objects, characters, camera, target,
   and light sources.
- Motion paths can be linear or cubic spline (with tension control).
- You can view your world from any angle and at any scale, or from the camera
   (at any frame).
- Your objects are represented in wireframe, and you can choose to view them
   in full curve, vector, bounding box, or bounding rectangle.
- You can also see all actions and morphs you have defined.
- Motion channels allow you to define motion, and transitions without using
   keyframes.  Rather, the channel uses a graph for the values over time.
   You have full tension control, meaning the transitions can be sharp and
   abrupt, or smooth and gradual.  This kind of control gives you the ability
   to make natural fluid motion in addition to mechanical motion.  Channels
   are provided for each character path, the target path (where the camera is
   pointed), the camera, and each light source.  This technique has only been
   available in high end workstation software like WaveFront, Alias, and
   Symbolics.

Render:
- Scanline and Ray Tracing are both supported.
- Shadows and transparency are now supported in scanline mode.
- Output resolution and aspect ratio are user selectable.
- ANIM and IFF24 are supported.
- Render can be run from commandline (or from a script)


Animation:Journeyman brings the next generation of character animation
to the Amiga.  Full cubic patch modelling and rendering bring new
power and ease of use that have only been available on systems costing
tens of thousands of dollars.  Journeyman also features ray-tracing,
IFF texture decaling, cubic spline motion paths for objects, camera, and
lights, channel motion control, muscle morphing, and spine morphing.
24-bit image generation is also supported (24 bit output is in IFF24).
Journeyman retails for $500 on the Amiga 2500 and the Amiga 3000 (Journeyman
requires at least a 68020 with a math chip to run).  An upgrade path is
provided
for owners of Animation:Apprentice.  Due to the specialized nature of our
intended market, Journeyman is available only direct from Hash Enterprises.

For more information call or write:

Hash Enterprises
2800 E. Evergreen Blvd.
Vancouver, WA  98661
[phone]
--
    //    -Ken Baer.  Programmer/Animator, Hash Enterprises / Earthling
  \X/     Usenet: [e-mail]  or  PLink: KEN BAER
         "What?!? Sore again?" -- Bugs Bunny to Yosemity Sam


Date: Tue, 5 Mar 91 11:14:05 +0100
From: [e-mail] (Helge Egelund Rasmussen)
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Journeyman

>Hey, does anybody know how good journeyman is? I just saw a review in
>Amiga World about it. Spline modeling is what I like and want.
>well see ya.

I have only had Journeyman for a few weeks, so I'm still at the learning
stage.

It is VERY advanced, but unfortunately it has quite a few bugs in the rendering
module: I get GURU's when I try to render a picture(!!).
However, if I change the picture size to 320x400, it work ok, so
I guess that the problem is with the handling of PAL machines.
I have told Hash Enterprises about it, so now I'll see how good their customer
service is...
A new version (1.2) should be released in the near future.

I'll probably post a longer 'review' of it when I get the new version.

Here is little 'description' of it:

Journeyman is delivered on two diskettes, one contain the software and the
other contains files which are used when you try the tutorial section of
the manual.

The manual are good and contain a large tutorial section in which you create a
full 80 frame animation of a jumping/bowing worm!!
It seems that the tutorial is for the NEXT version of the program, as it is
describing commands which doesn't exist in the reference section or in
the program.

Journeyman consist of 6 programs: Sculpture, Character, Action, Direction,
Render and Display.

SCULPTURE is a mix of the Imagine 'forms' and 'detail' editors.
You create simple objects (called 'segments) here, but assignment of
attributes etc. is done in the CHARACTER module.
All 'faces' are created of 'patches' which is curved surfaces. Because of this
you don't need as many faces as you would use in other 3d programs.
The program try to keep a smooth connection between patches, but it is possible
to create sharp (peaked) connections as well.

You can modify the patches by moving the control-points, and by
modifying three parameters (magnitude, alpha-bias and gamma-bias), which
define the curvature of the patch.
The magnitude decides how flat the patch is; if the magnitude is 0 the patch
is peaked at the control point, if the magnitude is very great then the patch
is flat.
The bias values control the angles of the patch near the controlpoint.

You only have two windows, but you can assign these to front, bottom, right,
left, top bottom or eye-view as you want.
It is possible to edit the object from all these views (including the eye view).

One of the very nice features is that you can 'paint' on your object very
easily. If you press the 'j' key, you end up in a little painting program.
Here you can render your object in shaded view, and it is then possible to
paint on the object (for instance you could put make-up on a head!). It is
possible to load brushes from other paint programs if you wish, but you
can't use more than 32 colors. It is also possible to load IFF brushes from
other painting programs.

Another thing that you can do, is to draw a face and profile view of your
object in the paint program. Then you can change this into a three dimensional
object by pressing a key.

Because of the spline/patch oriented interface, it is very easy to create
smooth objects.

In the CHARACTER program, you create characters by connecting the segments
created in the sculpture program; it is here that you add attributes to
the objects. It has a lot of different textures, and you have a preview feature
so that you can see what the texture looks like before rendering.
The textures are very nice, but they are also VERY expensive in rendering time.

It is possible to set values for:
    Ambient light,
    Transmission,
    Reflection,
    Roughness,
    Red, Green, Blue,
    Sphecular reflection.
There is only one slider for each of these (Imagine, I think, has three for
Sphecular reflection). Values are from 0 to 100 (Imagine has values between
0 and 255).

The ACTION program is used to create motion, it is best compared to the cycle
editor in Imagine.
Here you can create skeleton motion by keyframing as in the cycle
editor, but you have MUCH more control over what is happening.
For instance, you can modify curves which show how a object is moving in the
X, Y and Z directions over time, and then you can modify it as you want
(to create acceleration/decelleration etc.)
You can also morph an object, either by moving 'control points' or by
changing the curve parameters (magnitude and bias).
It is also possible to get a graph of this, and modify this if you want.
Finally you can create 'spine' motions. If you bend/turn/stretch a spine in an
object, the object will bend/turn/stretch too (and still be smooth etc.).
This can be controlled by graphs too.

The DIRECTION program corresponds to the Imagine 'Stage editor'.
Here you do the same things as you can do in the stage/action editor.
You can create spline paths for objects, lights and the camera, and you can use
graphs to modify acceleration etc.
Focal length, light colors, light bulb widths etc. is also governed by graphs,
so you have a lot of control over what is happening.
The camera can act as a real camera, that is it can be set up so that things
may be out of focus depending on distance (Depth Of Field).
All motion is governed by paths and graphs, so you can accelerate/decellerate
objects.
The 'action list editor' and the 'morph list editor' is where you assign
skeleton motion and morphs to the objects. A skeleton motion/morph isn't a
part of an object, for instance, you can use different motion/morphs for the
same object.


The RENDER program corresponds to the Imagine project editor.
Here you add the background color (which can't vary as it can in Imagine),
it is possible to add a haze effect to the picture.
It is possible to render in Preview mode (=ham), Anim file mode and Iff 24
bit mode. It is also possible to use antialiassing, enable/disable shadows and
choose between scanline or raytracing.
As I mentioned, I've had a lot of problems with this part of Journeyman.
In fact the only way I have been able to use this module is by using
the PREVIEW 320x400 mode which work most of the time (nearly everything else
crashes the machine!!)
The renderer seems slower than the one in Imagine, especially if one are using
textures.

DISPLAY is just another iff/anim viewer.

Overall, I like the program very much.
You have MUCH more control over motion etc. than you have in Imagine.

It is NOT possible to 'morph' texture parameters as you can do in Imagine.

As in Imagine, light sources isn't objects; they are added in the Direction
module (= Imagine stage editor). Because of this it is very difficult to create animations with objects holding lamps etc (ie. A man walking with a flashlight).

I think that the Imagine renderer is quite a bit better than the one in
Journeyman, but as I said, I haven't had that much chance to play with the
renderer :-(

It is very easy to create smooth objects (human/animal objects) because it is
based on splines/patches, and you use much fewer control points than you use
in for instance Imagine. The spine and muscle morphing features give much better
control of the animation of these objects.

Journeyman doesn't have any 'standard' objects (plane, sphere, tube, box etc),
so you have to create these by hand when needed. The only advanced command
are 'extrude' (ie. no spin, skin etc.).

Unfortunately, it isn't able to import Imagine/TS or Sculpt objects into
Journeyman, so you have to create all new objects youself.

Finally, there is no Journeyman mailing list on USENET :-( :-(, in fact
I haven't as yet seen postings from other users of the program.

A big plus is, that a person from Hash Enterprises is on the net, and that he
is willing to answer stoopid questions.
It is really nice to be able to ask questions to someone who really know the
program.

Just ask if you have further questions about the program...

Helge
---
Helge E. Rasmussen  .  PHONE + 45 31 37 11 00  .  E-mail:  [e-mail]
Compel A/S          .  FAX   + 45 31 37 06 44  .
Copenhagen, Denmark


Article 1561 of comp.sys.amiga.graphics:
Path: masscomp!rpi!usc!ucsd!nosc!crash!crash!pro-party.cts.com!seanc
From: [e-mail] (Sean Cunningham)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.graphics
Subject: JMan Review: INTRO
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 18 May 91 00:16:09 GMT
Sender: [e-mail] (Bill Blue)
Organization: Crash TimeSharing, El Cajon, CA
Lines: 70


     Well, here it is, my long-awaited ANIMATION:Journeyman review.
My apologies go out to Ken Baer and everyone who expected the review
earlier.  I ran behind due to final exams, and final projects for
both my TV Production class and my Speaking for RTV class.  Now, with
that out of the way, let's get on with it...

     First off, it should be appreciated that ANIMATION:Journeyman's
predecessor was, what else, ANIMATION:Apprentice which served as a
thesis for Martin Hash's Masters degree in Computer Science.  It is
unique from all other three dimensional modeling/rendering packages
available for the Amiga in that it's spline/cubic patch based rather
than vector/polygon based.

     ANIMATION:Journeyman (I'll refer to it as JMan for the rest of
the review) uses a proprietary type of spline (Catmull Rom) developed
by Hash Enterprises.  In many respects, it's superior to the more
conventional Bezier or NURBS (Non Uniform Rational B-Spline).  The
JMan interface gives you three dimensional control over the curves
that represent your object, giving you unprecedented control over
surface contours.

     Instead of defining surfaces as polygons, JMan uses cubic
patches, which can be thought of as sheets of rubber stretched over a
smoothly curving wireframe.  You'll see no tell-tale facets that are
so common in vector/polygon based renderers, even when you get close
to the edge of a surface.

     JMan was designed expressly for three-dimensional character
animation, so popular with advertisers these days.  And with this in
mind, it's the only package available for the Amiga to provide all
the tools necessary for such a task.

     Since JMan is modular, I've decided to break this review down
into review "modules," one for each piece that makes up JMan:
SCULPTURE, CHARACTER, ACTION, DIRECTION, and RENDER.  This also helps
me out since the editor on Pro-Party only allows messages of 100
lines or less :)

     JMan is $500, and can only be purchased from Hash Enterprises
(206-693-7443).  It requires an A2500/20 or equivalent (the splines
require an FPU for the realtime interaction).  It comes with two
disks and a full-size three-ring binder.  The manual is pretty good,
as software manuals go, and although it lacks an index the table of
contents is pretty thorough.

     The machine I used for this review was my very own Amiga
3000-25/50 with two megabytes of ChipRAM, and two megabytes of Fast
SCRAM.  Although I run almost exclusively under AmigaDOS v2.03,
anytime something unexpected happened I would check it out under
v1.3.2.  Under all but a few instances, there was no difference in the
way JMan performed.  I run with both instruction and data caches
turned on, using CPU under v2.03 and SetCPU under v1.3.2.  Nothing
else was running in the background to conflict with JMan.

     I'll also be uploading a copy of this review to STUDIO AMIGA
along with several screenshots, fully rendered images, and some
sample animation.  Unlike what you've probably seen sofar from JMan's
output, everything I'm uploading is fully shaded.  Studio Amiga is in
the Dallas/FtWorth area, and its number is 817-467-3658.

On with the review...

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> .SIG v2.5 <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
  UUCP: ...!crash!pnet01!pro-party!seanc       RealWorld: Sean Cunningham
  ARPA: !crash!pnet01!pro-party![e-mail]     Voice: [phone]
  INET: [e-mail]        ____________________________________
                                    // | * All opinions  expressed herein |
  HELP KEEP THE COMPETITION UNDER \X/  |   Copyright 1991 VISION GRAPHICS |
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<


Article 1568 of comp.sys.amiga.graphics:
Path: masscomp!rpi!usc!ucsd!nosc!crash!crash!pro-party.cts.com!seanc
From: [e-mail] (Sean Cunningham)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.graphics
Subject: JMan Review: SCULPTURE
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 18 May 91 00:16:16 GMT
Sender: [e-mail] (Bill Blue)
Organization: Crash TimeSharing, El Cajon, CA
Lines: 108


     Modeling is what separates the men from the boys when it comes
to 3D packages.  JMan's SCULPTURE module has one of *the* most
powerful interfaces you'll find.  What's interesting is that the
SCULPTURE module is actually two programs in one: PAINTER and
MODELER.

     JMan's PAINTER module allows you to quickly create 3D volumes of
rotation through a process called AUTOSCULPTING.  Although just about
any modeler available lets you spin or sweep a cross-section to
create such volumes, JMan lets you create symmetrical or
*asymmetrical* volumes through an intuitive paintbox interface.

     The PAINTER screen gives you a lores (320x200) workarea, with a
toolbox over on the right-hand side of the screen.  Here you find
a group of common drawing tools (freehand, line, curve, etc.) and
gadgets for toggling back and fourth between PAINTER's two
workscreens, AUTOSCULPTING, quick rendering, and fifteen banks for
IFF brushes used to DECAL your object, or in JMan terms, your
SEGMENT.  There is also a coordinate window for precise placement of
AUTOSCULPTING LINES, decals, etc., and a user-definable palette of
twenty-four colors.

     To create your SEGMENT, you need to draw a SILHOUETTE of its
VISAGE (front) and/or its PROFILE (side).  This is accomplished
through the use of color-coded lines that JMan will follow in the
AUTOSCULPTING process.

     The SILHOUETTE color is used to draw out the basic shape you
want, using the second color in the palette, usually black.  On top
of this SILHOUETTE you draw an AUTOSCULPTING LINE, using the fourth
color in the palette, usually red.  The AUTOSCULPTING LINE is what
controls the symmetry of your SEGMENT.  A straight line down the
middle will result in a symmetrical shape, while a line with a curve
to it ON THE SAME SILHOUETTE will result in a shape completely
different.  I won't even try to explain how this works, as it takes
allot of experimentation.  From the manual:"...a set of symmetrical
forearm SILHOUETTES could show musculature if the AUTOSCULPTING LINE
was curved to one side."

     To control the vertical complexity of your object, you also need
to draw SLICES, or horizontal lines, across your SILHOUETTE using the
third color in the palette, usually brown.  The SLICES will become
horizontal "loops" around the SEGMENT once it's AUTOSCULPTED.

     After you've drawn your SILHOUETTES, it's time AUTOSCULPT.  A
click on the AUTOSCULPT gadget gives you a requester asking how
complex you wish to make your SEGMENT.  This governs how many CONTROL
POINTS to use per SLICE.  Your choices are FOUR, EIGHT, SIXTEEN,
THIRTY-TWO, or SIXTY-FOUR.  Under most circumstances, eight CONTROL
POINTS will do the job.

     To see the results, you go up to the menus and choose MODELER
SCREEN from the PROJECT menu, or press the [J] key, ala DPaint.

     MODELER is where you modify AUTOSCULPTED SEGMENTS created with
PAINTER, or you can choose to model more intricate surfaces
point-by-point.

     The SCULPTURE screen is hires-interlace (640x400), but due to a
careful choice of palette the flicker is next to nonexistent.  It
presents you with a panel of gadgets across the top, and two windows
for SEGMENT views.  You can choose from front, right, top, back,
left, bottom and perspective views.  You're also given gadgets for
ZOOM, MOVE, and TURN to control your view, and ROLL, TILT, and SWIVEL
to control the orientation of your SEGMENT.  You're also give gadgets
for scaling your segment along the X, Y and Z planes, and each can be
accessed independently of the others.

     JMan differs from most other modelers (particularly IMAGINE's
DETAIL editor) in that it lets you push, pull, mold and modify your
object from *any* view, even PERSPECTIVE.  And since all
modifications take place with the wave of the mouse, there is a
definite "tacticity," if you will, to the interface, not unlike
CALIGARI.  You get near immediate feedback so you know if your move
was right or if you've made a mistake...but don't worry, there's a
very useful gadget for these instances right up at the top of the
screen...the UNDO :)  And if you need to make very precise
modifications, each of the gadgets has an accompanying text-entry
window for coordinates.

     Creating SEGMENTS from scratch is a fairly straight-forward
process similar to polygon modelers.  You simply click the ADD
gadget, or press [A] and begin placing CONTROL POINTS onscreen.
Now you have two points connected by a spline.  If you have several
points linked by splines that you wish to join together you click on
the LOOP gadget and the ends are closed.  To aid in the placement of
control points, you can turn GRID SPACING on by selecting GRID from
the PREFERENCES menu and enter a value for the spacing (default is
20).  But instead of a screen full of intersecting lines, which can
be confusing at times, you only see their intersection represented by
a single dot.  This also helps to combat the flicker that thin
horizontal lines can cause.

     From the panel of gadgets along the top of the screen you can
select tools to aid in the modeling process.  The GROUP tool lets you
draw a bounding box around several CONTROL POINTS so that JMan knows
that the next tool or function is to affect only these points.  Once
selected, points may be PEAKed, SMOOTHed, EXTRUDEed, or CLONEed.  You
can also HIDE selected points if they're in the way.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> .SIG v2.5 <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
  UUCP: ...!crash!pnet01!pro-party!seanc       RealWorld: Sean Cunningham
  ARPA: !crash!pnet01!pro-party![e-mail]     Voice: [phone]
  INET: [e-mail]        ____________________________________
                                    // | * All opinions  expressed herein |
  HELP KEEP THE COMPETITION UNDER \X/  |   Copyright 1991 VISION GRAPHICS |
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<


Article 1565 of comp.sys.amiga.graphics:
Path: masscomp!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!ucsd!nosc!crash!crash!pro-party.cts.com!seanc
From: [e-mail] (Sean Cunningham)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.graphics
Subject: JMan Review: SCULPTURE (cont)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 18 May 91 00:16:12 GMT
Sender: [e-mail] (Bill Blue)
Organization: Crash TimeSharing, El Cajon, CA
Lines: 59


     PEAK makes the splines between selected CONTROL POINTS rigid,
like they were vectors in a polygon editor, while SMOOTH will give
you a "continuous junction" between CONTROL POINTS.  But JMan doesn't
stop here.  You have three-dimensional control over splines via the
ALPHA, GAMMA, and MAGNITUDE gadgets.

     Let's say you have curve made up of three CONTROL POINTS
connected together by a single spline.  ALPHA lets you interactively
control the tension of the curve along the same plane as the curve
while GAMMA controls the tension along the plane perpendicular to the
curve.  These allow you to twist and shape your curve from each
CONTROL POINT.  The MAGNITUDE controls how tight the curve is between
control points.  In other words, the higher the number, the more
broad your curve will be.  Lower values cause your curve to become
PEAKed.  And since the cubic patches are laid down over the curvature
of the splines, these three tools give you total power over the the
surface characteristics of your SEGMENT.  Even minor adjustments can
dramatically change your surfaces.

     After you've modified your SEGMENT to your liking, or while you
make your modifications, you click the Front-to-Back gadget in the
upper right corner to take you back to the PAINTER screen.  Once
here, click on the QUICK RENDER gadget.  After some thinking, you'll
see b&w shaded representation of your object. (Note: the viewing
angle of the FIRST viewing window is used for QUICK RENDER's view)
This brings us to another of JMan's features that sets it apart from
the rest: DECALing.

     There's only one problem with me reviewing this feature, it
doesn't work.  According to Ken Baer of Hash Enterprises, this
feature is supposed to work beautifully, but I have yet to see it
happen.

     DECALing lets you bring in IFF brushes (by clicking on one of
fifteen DECAL BUFFER gadgets), and stamp them over your QUICK SHADEed
SEGMENT.  After stamped, you click the GLUE gadget to render the
SEGMENT again, but this time you'll see the image wrapped onto the
surface of the SEGMENT.  In addition, you can use the drawing tools
to paint *directly* onto the surface of the SEGMENT!

     The current version only supports what are called STANDARD MAPs,
which are the equivalent to COLOR MAPs in IMAGINE.  Future versions
will support TRANSPARENCY, and BUMP mapping.  Plans also point to
ANIMBrush mapping.

     After you've DECALed your SEGMENT to your taste, you choose SAVE
SURFACEMAP from the PROJECT menu.  The SURFACEMAP must later be
called from the CHARACTER module.

Next up: CHARACTER

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> .SIG v2.5 <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
  UUCP: ...!crash!pnet01!pro-party!seanc       RealWorld: Sean Cunningham
  ARPA: !crash!pnet01!pro-party![e-mail]     Voice: [phone]
  INET: [e-mail]        ____________________________________
                                    // | * All opinions  expressed herein |
  HELP KEEP THE COMPETITION UNDER \X/  |   Copyright 1991 VISION GRAPHICS |

Article 1563 of comp.sys.amiga.graphics:
Path: masscomp!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!ucsd!nosc!crash!crash!pro-party.cts.com!seanc
From: [e-mail] (Sean Cunningham)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.graphics
Subject: JMan Review: CHARACTER
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 18 May 91 00:16:22 GMT
Sender: [e-mail] (Bill Blue)
Organization: Crash TimeSharing, El Cajon, CA
Lines: 109


     In JMan, a FIGURE is a hierarchically grouped series of
SEGMENTS.  A CHARACTER can be composed of either a single FIGURE or
multiple FIGURES (which is usually the case).  This is to allow the
animator to keep a library of motions, called ACTIONS, that can be
used again and again on different CHARACTERs.

     The CHARACTER screen is also hires-interlace, using the same
palette as the SCULPTURE module to ease the eyes.  Its top section
contains a panel of gadgets, with a secondary panel of attributes
gadgets down the right side of the screen.  This module uses only one
viewing window, which takes up approximately 3/4 of the screen.

     After entering the CHARACTER module, you can begin loading in
SEGMENTs by clicking the ADD gadget in the far left corner of the
screen.  This will bring up a file requester.  Or, you can load in a
previously made FIGURE by selecting LOAD from the PROJECT menu.

     Once a FIGURE is loaded, or multiple SEGMENTS, you can toggle
the way individual SEGMENTS are represented from the DISPLAY menu.
DISPLAY contains options for TOGGLING a segment between curved and
bounded representation, making an entire BRANCH of SEGMENTS curved
(the selected SEGMENT and all child SEGMENTS) or making the BRANCH
bounded.  You can also choose to make either a selected SEGMENT
invisible, or an entire BRANCH invisible.  The NEXT menu choice will
take you to the next SEGMENT in the FIGURE's hierarchy.

     Like in the SCULPTURE module, you are presented with independent
gadgets for a SEGMENT's X, Y, and Z scaling, ROLL, TILT, and SWIVEL,
and your viewpoint's ZOOM, MOVE, and ROTATE gadgets.  Along the top
of the panel are the ADD (discussed previously) and DELETE gadgets
for SEGMENTS, and also the PARENT and GHOST gadgets.

     If you are creating a complex FIGURE of, say, a robot or a
human, you need to create a hierarchy for the individual SEGMENTs to
follow in order to maintain the proper position, scale and rotation.
JMan automatically makes the currently selected SEGMENT the PARENT of
the next SEGMENT to be loaded.  If you don't want the hierarchy set
this way, simply have the SEGMENT selected that you just loaded,
click on the PARENT gadget, and then click on the SEGMENT to be the
new PARENT.

     A GHOST can be one of two things: A) an invisible member of a
FIGURE's hierarchy (similar to the way the axis TRACK is used in
IMAGINE) which could be the PATRIARCH SEGMENT of a FIGURE, or the
SEGMENT that is superior to all other SEGMENTS in the hierarchy, or
B)a SEGMENT that you do not wish to render in the current animation.

     Along the mid to right section of the top panel are gadgets that
govern the surface properties of the individual SEGMENTs in your
FIGURE.  You can selectively control the AMBient value of the
segment, or how lighted a SEGMENT is even if no light is shining
directly on it, the TRAnsparency of the SEGMENT (Note: I have not been
able to get this to work at all), the ROUghness of the SEGMENT, the
SPEcularity of the SEGMENT, the amount of MIRror quality the SEGMENT
has, and it's index of REFraction.  All of these gadgets accept
values from 0 to 100, where 100 is equal to 100% of a given quality.

     Below the top panel, and to the right, is a second panel of
gadgets for controlling the attributes of a selected SEGMENT.  At the
top is a set of RGB gadgets that will accept values from 0 to 100 (in
a future upgrade, I'd like to see this go to 0 to 255 for greater
precision when working with 24bits of color).  In the middle of this
panel are gadgets that represent different textures that may be
applied to your SEGMENT. In addition to the usual WOOD, MARBLE, and
WAVE (ripple) textures, JMan gives you CHECKERED, BRICK, ERODED,
PEBBLE, and some that just about defy description (MYSTERY 1, MOTTLED
1 and 2, and BOZO).

     Now here's where the fun begins.  Not only does the gadget for
the individual textures show you what they'll look like, but there is
a PREVIEW gadget in the lower right that lets you view color changes
and attribute changes to the texture!  Some texture have their own
waveform(s) and these waveforms can be modified using the AMPlitude,
FReQency, DaMPening, CYCle, and PRoPagation gadgets.  Some of the
textures allow up to FIVE different waveforms that can be modified
independently of the other.  Their culmination can create more
realistic, random patterns.  Each of the waveforms emanate from the
SEGMENT's bounding box corners and around its PIVOT (axis of
rotation).  There are also three text gadgets that control the sizing
of different elements within a given texture.

     So far, I've been able to successfully use the textures
provided, as long as you don't modify the waveform of the texture.
This is unfortunate, as the default values aren't always acceptable
for the SEGMENT at hand.

     With v1.2 of JMan's CHARACTER module, there are several extra
gadgets for WRAP, REPEAT, PLANE, CYLINder, and SPHERE.  While these
aren't active in this version, I was told by Ken Baer that they will
be used for the ENVIRONMENT MAPPING feature they're working on right
now.

     And if you have created a SURFACEMAP for a particular SEGMENT in
the PAINTER section of the SCULPTURE module, then you'll need to
select that SEGMENT and click on the bar at the upper right of the
screen.  This will open a file requester so that you find and select
the SEGMENT's SURFACEMAP.

     Once you're finished creating your FIGURE, choose SAVE from the
PROJECT menu.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> .SIG v2.5 <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
  UUCP: ...!crash!pnet01!pro-party!seanc       RealWorld: Sean Cunningham
  ARPA: !crash!pnet01!pro-party![e-mail]     Voice: [phone]
  INET: [e-mail]        ____________________________________
                                    // | * All opinions  expressed herein |
  HELP KEEP THE COMPETITION UNDER \X/  |   Copyright 1991 VISION GRAPHICS |
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<


Article 1564 of comp.sys.amiga.graphics:
Path: masscomp!rpi!usc!ucsd!nosc!crash!crash!pro-party.cts.com!seanc
From: [e-mail] (Sean Cunningham)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.graphics
Subject: JMan Review: ACTION
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 18 May 91 00:16:26 GMT
Sender: [e-mail] (Bill Blue)
Organization: Crash TimeSharing, El Cajon, CA
Lines: 109


     JMan's ACTION module is probably the most complex piece of the
package.  After it's loaded you're greeted with another
hires-interlace screen that looks similar to the SCULPTURE module's
MODELER screen but with more gadgets.  The ACTION module is for
"relative" motion.  Relative motion would be the act of turning your
head as you walk along a straight path ("absolute" motion).  JMan
lets you store a library of relative motions, or ACTIONS so that they
may be used later, and for other FIGURES having the same number of
SEGMENTS.

     After you LOAD a FIGURE from the PROJECT menu, you see that you
have the same gadgets for controlling the aspect of your viewpoint as
well as the orientation of selected SEGMENTs.  You can also use the
gadgets above each view window to change angles.

     The left hand window is where you will modify a SEGMENT or group
of SEGMENTs across a series of frames to create one of several types
of animation.  The right hand window lets you view the entire FIGURE
while animating.  This right hand window is called the SKELETON
window, while the window on the left is the MORPH window.

     There are several types of animation possible in the ACTION
module, and you'll more than likely use either more than one, or ALL
of them when animating a FIGURE.  The first, is SKELETON motion.
This is the simplest form of motion, and can affect only whole
SEGMENTs.  SKELETON motion includes ROLL, TILT, and SWIVEL rotation,
X, Y, and Z movement, and scaling along X, Y, and Z.

     If you wish a movement to affect a SEGMENT on the CONTROL POINT
level, then you'll need to use MUSCLE motion.  MUSCLE motion lets you
bend, twist and scale a SEGMENT point by point, using familiar tools
from the MODELER screen like GROUP and HIDE.

     Then there is SPINE motion.  Up until now, I haven't described
anything (except for the splines and cubic patches) that you can't
get in any other 3D package.  Here's where JMan leaves them all in
the dust, and I don't care if it's IMAGINE we're talking about,
LIGHTWAVE or CALIGARI.  SPINE motion, unique to JMan and JMan only,
allows you to animate a single spline and have this spline control a
much larger SEGMENT.  The spline would be drawn down the length of a
SEGMENT in the MODELER section of the SCULPTURE module.  The number
of control points along this spline should be determined according to
the size of the SEGMENT it will be controlling.  After a FIGURE is
loaded into the ACTION module, and the SEGMENT containing the SPINE
is selected, you select one of the CONTROL POINTS on SPINE and choose
ASSIGN SPINE from the PREFERENCES menu.  With this taken care of, you
click the SPINE gadget from the panel running along the top of the
screen.  Now you can select any of the CONTROL POINTS along the SPINE
and use the scaling and rotation gadgets to modify the entire
segment.  This is extremely useful for "squash and stretch"
animation, critical for believable characters.  The only technique
that is even close to SPINE motion is Pacific Data Images'
"squashbox" technique, where a complex character is represented by a
bounded volume that can be distorted and twisted, etc.  Then this
motion is passed on to the more complex object.  Same thing with
JMan.

     The motion in the ACTION module is keyframe based.  You have a
FRAMES gadget that lets you jump ahead to establish a new keyframe,
or go back to an existing frame.  However, the ACTION module isn't
limited to the method of keyframing so common to other packages.
The ACTION module makes use of CHANNELS, which are graphic
representations of motion.  JMan uses splines to represent this
motion.

     You open a CHANNEL window by selecting the appropriate type from
the PREFERENCES menu.  Once open, you'll notice that it has the
standard gadgets of an Intuition window, but with extra gadgets along
the bottom and right side.  The interior of the window, the CHANNEL
GRAPH, is where the motion will be represented.  If you're working on
a large bit of animation, you can drag the CHANNEL window out to full
screen, and multiple CHANNELs may be open at a time.  Each CHANNEL
window is for particular SEGMENT, so more than one of each type may
be open as well.  Keep in mind, it can be *very* confusing if you have
several windows open.

     The SKELETON CHANNEL lets you control the scale and translation
of a SEGMENT along the X, Y, and Z planes, as well as its ROLL, TILT,
and SWIVEL.  The SPINE CHANNEL gives you the same controls.  The BIAS
CHANNEL lets you tweak the ALPHA 1 and 2, GAMMA 1 and 2, and
MAGNITUDE 1 and 2.  This is for when you've modified the ALPHA,
GAMMA, and/or MAGNITUDE values for CONTROL POINTS while performing
MUSCLE motion.  And the MUSCLE CHANNEL lets you control the
translation of the CONTROL POINTS modified with MUSCLE MOTION along
the X, Y, and Z planes.

     Once inside a CHANNEL window, select the parameter you wish to
adjust and use the gadgets along the bottom of the window to Add,
Delete, Peak, and Smooth CONTROL POINTS as you draw your curves.
There's also an Undo gadget to take back a mistake. Frames are
represented horizontally across the CHANNEL GRAPH, while the
percentage of the motion's completion is along the vertical plane.
Very smooth motion can be attained by experimenting with the
curvature of your graph.

     You can check your progress by clicking on the AUDITION and
PREVIEW gadgets at the top.  AUDITION lets you preview SPINE and
MUSCLE motion as seen in the MORPH WINDOW.  PREVIEW lets you see the
SKELETON, SPINE, and MUSCLE motion together, as seen from the
SKELETON WINDOW.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> .SIG v2.5 <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
  UUCP: ...!crash!pnet01!pro-party!seanc       RealWorld: Sean Cunningham
  ARPA: !crash!pnet01!pro-party![e-mail]     Voice: [phone]
  INET: [e-mail]        ____________________________________
                                    // | * All opinions  expressed herein |
  HELP KEEP THE COMPETITION UNDER \X/  |   Copyright 1991 VISION GRAPHICS |
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<


Article 1562 of comp.sys.amiga.graphics:
Path: masscomp!rpi!usc!ucsd!nosc!crash!crash!pro-party.cts.com!seanc
From: [e-mail] (Sean Cunningham)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.graphics
Subject: JMan Review: ACTION (cont)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 18 May 91 00:16:30 GMT
Sender: [e-mail] (Bill Blue)
Organization: Crash TimeSharing, El Cajon, CA
Lines: 29


     Both AUDITION and PREVIEW animations are saved to RAM: as a file
called TEST.

     Once you have your relative motions the way you want them, you
will want to save these motions for use later.  SKELETON motions
must be saved separate from MUSCLE and SPINE motion.  MUSCLE and
SPINE motion may be saved individually, or together as a MORPH
motion.

     Something that came up while using CHANNELs was that they do not
like to be closed, resulting in several "Green GURUs," but more of
the fatal kind.  This occurred under both v2.03 and v1.3.2 of
AmigaDOS, and is something that needs to be worked on.  Another
problem with the CHANNEL windows is specific to v2.03.  The new
AmigaDOS windows are much wider on the right side than the older
AmigaDOS windows, so some of the CHANNEL PARAMETER gadgets are
invisible.  You can still click on them and modify them, but it's
annoying not to be able to see them.

Next up: DIRECTION

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> .SIG v2.5 <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
  UUCP: ...!crash!pnet01!pro-party!seanc       RealWorld: Sean Cunningham
  ARPA: !crash!pnet01!pro-party![e-mail]     Voice: [phone]
  INET: [e-mail]        ____________________________________
                                    // | * All opinions  expressed herein |
  HELP KEEP THE COMPETITION UNDER \X/  |   Copyright 1991 VISION GRAPHICS |
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<


Article 1567 of comp.sys.amiga.graphics:
Path: masscomp!rpi!usc!ucsd!nosc!crash!crash!pro-party.cts.com!seanc
From: [e-mail] (Sean Cunningham)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.graphics
Subject: JMan Review: DIRECTION
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 18 May 91 00:16:38 GMT
Sender: [e-mail] (Bill Blue)
Organization: Crash TimeSharing, El Cajon, CA
Lines: 91


     JMan's DIRECTION module is where you set up "absolute" motion of
objects, and take care of scene composition, lighting, etc.  As with
the CHARACTER module, you have only one window, but this time it
takes up about 7/8 of the screen, with only a panel of gadgets
running across the top of the screen.  Like the other modules, this
window's view is controllable via the now familiar gadgets that are
standard from module to module.

     In the upper right corner of the screen are gadgets controlling
frames in the DIRECTION module.  FRAMES sets how many frames you want
in your animation, RANGE tells JMan which frames to display when
doing a PREVIEW animation (this works just like with the ACTION
module), and a CURRENT FRAME gadget.

     Unlike animation within the ACTION module, animation within the
DIRECTION module is based on spline paths.  Unlike the spline paths
available in Imagine, JMan lets you draw out your own paths using the
same tools you used to create SEGMENTs.  After you have ADDed a
CONTROL POINT or a PATH, you can assign the CAMERA, TARGET, a LIGHT,
or a CHARACTER to that CONTROL POINT or PATH from the ASSIGN menu.

     One of the really nice touches is the ease with which setting up
the CAMERA is.  From any of the views, the CAMERA is shown with two
angled lines extending from its center.  The area between these lines
represents the cameras field of view.  This makes it fast and easy to
position the CAMERA, and then switch to the CAMERA's view to make
finer adjustments.  Another useful feature is the ability to
manipulate the position of the TARGET while looking through the
CAMERA, as well as that of CHARACTERS.

     If your CHARACTERS are going to be performing relative actions,
then you'll need to go to the SCRIPT menu and select either ACTION
LIST, so you can load a CHARACTER's SKELETON motion, or MORPH List,
so you can load a CHARACTER's SPINE and/or MUSCLE motion.

     Now that your CAMERA is positioned, your LIGHTS are set, and
your CHARACTERs are loaded, back to CHANNELS.  In the DIRECTION
module there are CHANNELs for each of these, including the TARGET,
but its only parameter is EASE.

     EASE is the ability to control how gradually a CHARACTER, the
CAMERA, TARGET, or LIGHT performs its motion.  As with every other
CHANNEL parameter, this motion is represented by a curve.

     In addition to ROLL, TILT, SWIVEL, and EASE the CAMERA CHANNEL
gives you spline based control over Focal Length and Depth of Field.
Focal Length determines how much of the area around the CAMERA it's
able to see.  The lower the value, the more it can see, causing a
fisheye effect.  Depth of Field lets you control the CAMERA's Fstop.
This lets you determine an area surrounding the TARGET where
everything will be in focus.  Anything outside this area will be
slightly blurry.  This can add a great deal of realism to a scene,
but it makes a tremendous impact on performance, increasing the
render time about TEN TIMES!

     The LIGHT CHANNEL doesn't let you edit the LIGHT's position or
orientation.  What it does let you control is its EASE of motion, its
color (via R, G, and B parameters),  INTENSITY, WIDTH, and TYPE (Sun
or Bulb).  It also lets you control the distance before FALL OFF and
the FOCAL LENGTH of the light cone.  SUNs similar to SPHERICAL lights
in IMAGINE, while BULBs are like CONICAL lights.  BULBs always point
towards the TARGET.

     The CHARACTER CHANNEL gives you control over its parameters for
EASE, X, Y, and Z scaling, ROLL, TILT, and SWIVEL.  And again, all of
the drawing tools are the same as for MODELER and the other CHANNELs.

     As with the ACTION module, once you have a series of frames set
up, you can PREVIEW the motion.  Whichever view is currently selected
will be used to create the animation, and for some larger animations,
you won't always want to be looking through just the CAMERAs view.
And incidentally, the PREVIEW animations are saved as 704x480 ANIMs, so
they can be imported into Deluxe Paint III.

     Also, like with the ACTION module, once a CHANNEL window is
opened, it does not close gracefully.  This needs to be addressed
ASAP.

     After you're satisfied with all of your settings, choose SAVE from
the PROJECT menu to save your newly created CHOREOGRAPHY file.

Next Up: RENDER & Conclusion

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> .SIG v2.5 <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
  UUCP: ...!crash!pnet01!pro-party!seanc       RealWorld: Sean Cunningham
  ARPA: !crash!pnet01!pro-party![e-mail]     Voice: [phone]
  INET: [e-mail]        ____________________________________
                                    // | * All opinions  expressed herein |
  HELP KEEP THE COMPETITION UNDER \X/  |   Copyright 1991 VISION GRAPHICS |
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<


Article 1566 of comp.sys.amiga.graphics:
Path: masscomp!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!ucsd!nosc!crash!crash!pro-party.cts.com!seanc
From: [e-mail] (Sean Cunningham)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.graphics
Subject: JMan Review: RENDER & Conclusion
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 18 May 91 00:16:42 GMT
Sender: [e-mail] (Bill Blue)
Organization: Crash TimeSharing, El Cajon, CA
Lines: 106


     JMan's RENDER module is what takes all your other work and
presents it in a finished form, be it a still or an animation.

     You load up the CHOREOGRAPHY you just created in the DIRECTION
module by clicking on the bar running along the top of the screen
which calls up a file requester.  After this is loaded, you're faced
with several options that will determine what the final outcome looks
like.

     First off, let's talk about render quality.  The default is
SCANLINE, which is faster than JMan's raytracing under most
circumstances.  It has improved in quality from revision to revision,
and is now pretty smooth.  However, you loose reflections and shadows
when rendering SCANLINE.

     Raytracing is the next step.  I'm sure all or most of you know
what raytracing involves.  JMan uses the "distributed raytracing"
approach, which lets you selectively choose whether to render shadows
and/or use antialiasing.  Both add more time to your renders, with
antialiasing quadrupling it because it shoots four rays per pixel in
this mode.

     Your next choice will be the size of your image.  To test out
your scene you'll probably want to use the MINI size.  After you're
sure your lights and motion are correct you can choose a higher
resolution for the final rendering.  Memory permitting, JMan will
accept almost any pixel resolution.  You also have control over the
pixel aspect ratio, and if you just want to check a particular
portion of an image you can define a window within the scene to
render using the AREA gadgets.

     In the bottom left side of the screen are the color sliders that
let you set your background color, and a global ambient value.  The
OUTPUT gadgets let you generate a PREVIEW, which is an image
displayed but not saved, RGB, which saves the image as a standard
24bit ILBM, or ANIM.  There is also a gadget that controls the HAZE
distance.  You enter a value into this gadget, and the closer objects
are to that distance from the CAMERA, the more they start turning to
the color of the sky.

     To the lower right, you can set the starting and ending frames
to render, which is useful for checking specific frames, or a range
of frames in an animation.  Below this is the RENDER gadget, and the
EXIT gadget.

     Although Hash has increased the render quality greatly over that
of the earlier versions it still has its problems.  The greatest of
which is its instability when rendering 24bit imagery.  It's also
fairly slow, but I don't know whether this is due to the rendering
engine needing some of its code bummed, or because of the increased
complexity of the cubic patches over polygons...or both.  And I've
noticed several instances where parts of reflections and shadows go
invisible across a couple of frames and then reappear.

CONCLUSION:

     There isn't another package like JMan.  It has an interface
that's a delight to use as well as look at.  Some aspects of its
interface have yet to be mentioned in any of the magazine reviews.
All module screens "fade in" when they're run, and "fade out" when
you exit.  The file requesters are nice, and have the same
three-dimensional look as the rest of the interface, and do their own
fade in and fade out.  And speaking of file requesters, Hash has
added the capability of creating directories on the fly!  This is
something I hope Commodore will add to the next version of the
standard AmigaDOS file requester.

     All of the screens are well laid out.  And through an
intelligent choice of screen colors, flicker is kept to a minimum.
And the interface is fairly consistent from module to module.

     For character animation, no other package gives you the control
over motion that JMan offers.  And no other package gives you the
smooth, organic shapes that splines and cubic patch rendering
affords.  And even for mechanical motion, the CHANNELs in JMan give
it a decided advantage over other renderers.

     But JMan isn't without its faults.  Hash needs to work on its
stability, render quality, and render speed.  It also needs to swat a
couple rather annoying bugs, particularly those having to do with
DECALing and modifying the TEXTURES.  All of the features that are
being planned, and are being implemented are terrific, and are
welcome.  But I'd prefer that Hash focused their energies at this
time on fixing what they have now.

     If you want to be on the cutting edge of Amiga 3D software, JMan
is there.  Even with its faults I'd recommend considering it. Its an
investment in a growing and ever expanding project.

     Hash is dedicated to this, and their other products.  I've
spoken with different members of the staff, including Martin Hash
himself.  They're always eager to be of assistance, and are always
open to input from their products' owners.  Ken Baer is active on the
Internet and on PLink, and has always been eager to answer my
questions and give me advice when I got stuck.

Sean

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> .SIG v2.5 <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
  UUCP: ...!crash!pnet01!pro-party!seanc       RealWorld: Sean Cunningham
  ARPA: !crash!pnet01!pro-party![e-mail]     Voice: [phone]
  INET: [e-mail]        ____________________________________
                                    // | * All opinions  expressed herein |
  HELP KEEP THE COMPETITION UNDER \X/  |   Copyright 1991 VISION GRAPHICS |
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<


Article 1813 of comp.sys.amiga.graphics:
Path: masscomp!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!tektronix!percy!nosun!techbook!waynekn
From: [e-mail] (Wayne Knapp)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.graphics
Subject: Re: Wayne's World (was: JMan Review: RENDER & Conclusion)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 5 Jun 91 06:21:23 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Organization: TECHbooks of Beaverton Oregon - Public Access Unix
Lines: 59

mark@calvin..westford.ccur.com (Mark Thompson) writes:

>The first is lack of information. When I spoke to Ken at Siggraph, I asked
>him to send me any literature describing its capabilities in some detail.

Martin, is working on this, I talk to him about it almost everyday.  He
knows more about the program than anyone else since it is all he works on.
However, while working on the code it is easy to push off this kind of
item.  In my view, not having this kind of material available, is our big
misstake.

>The second is rendering capability. Time and time again I have heard people
>from Hash say things like "pretty pictures are just eye-candy" and "we are an
>animation company, not a ray-tracer company" or "fancy rendering is the realm
>of flying logo software". These are very short-sighted statements. All the
>high end animation packages (like TDI, Wavefront, Alias) have spectacular
>rendered output and are surely not limited in use to flying logos. My needs
>(as well as the needs of many others) are for fluid organic animation
>coupled with a renderer capable a variety natural surfaces and special
>effects. Also, ray-tracing is not the answer because it simply is not
>practical for animation of any length. While I have not seen the latest
>rev of JMan, what I have seen does not meet my rendering needs.

We are an animation company, that is the main long term focus.  By we are
not a ray-tracer company, it means that ray-tracing in not our only product.
We do have a good ray-tracer, just don't use it much, since it soooooo slow.
As for eye-candy, I don't know who said what you heard, but if I find out,
I going to stick a wet dirty sock in his month.  Eye-candy is what the game
is all about!

Flying logos are a little different.  Since the roots of Jman are in organic
modeling, it really wasn't suitable for flying logos at first.  However, I
see no road block to it now.  The only problem is, that our in-house people
are not interested in doing it.  However, there is no reason why you can't
model it and fly it!

>If you feel that the renderer has evolved enough to disuade my fears and
>Hash Enterprises is willing to work out a solution to the information
>problem (literature and an evaluation) then it is time we talk. If not,
>I wish your company the best of luck and hope that they consider rethinking
>their product strategy.

As we speak a run of Joyride is being single-frame recorded.  The sound is
done, so I hope that video will be out soon.  That is the best ad.  That and
a feature sheet.  Also, I wish Martin would sell the manuals, but I haven't
won that battle yet.

The render is getting much better, as you will see with our tape.  It as
lagged the modeling code, since we are rendering surfaces and not just
polygons.  The rendering code has gone through many, many revisions.

Long term, I will look at adding RenderMan support, but I'll booked solid
well into the fall, so that won't happen soon.

                                              Wayne Knapp
--
[e-mail]  ...!{tektronix!nosun,uunet}techbook!waynekn
Public Access UNIX at [phone] (1200/2400) Voice: [phone]
Public Access User --- Not affiliated with TECHbooks


Article 1837 of comp.sys.amiga.graphics:
Path: masscomp!know!mips2!cass.ma02.bull.com!think.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!ogicse!qiclab!baer
From: [e-mail] (Ken Baer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.graphics
Subject: Hash Enterprises Phone #
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 18 May 91 19:15:13 GMT
Organization: SCN Research/Qic Laboratories of Tigard, Oregon.
Lines: 22

In Sean Cunningham's recent review post of Journeyman (thanks Sean!),
he listed out OLD phone number.  I wanted to correct this and make
sure everyone had out new number.

The new Hash Enterprises business line number (we've had this number
for a year and a half) is:
[phone].

And the address is still:
Hash Enterprises
2800 E. Evergreen Blvd.
Vancouver, WA 98661

Business hours are 9am-5pm Pacific time.

Thanks,
    -Ken Baer.
    Hash Enterprises
--
    //    -Ken Baer.  Programmer/Animator, Hash Enterprises
  \X/     Usenet: [e-mail]  or  PLink: KEN BAER
          "Hey, I think a glacier just passed us!" - Andy from Joyride


Article 1860 of comp.sys.amiga.graphics:
Path: masscomp!dali.cs.montana.edu!caen!spool.mu.edu!uunet!ogicse!pdxgate!qiclab!techbook!waynekn
From: [e-mail] (Wayne Knapp)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.graphics
Subject: Re: JourneyMan
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 31 May 91 17:00:11 GMT
References: <[e-mail]>
Organization: TECHbooks of Beaverton Oregon - Public Access Unix
Lines: 38

[e-mail] (James Hastings-Trew) writes:

>Perhaps what Hash Enterprises needs to do is to put together a video tape of
>their software in action. The claim has been made that while the rendering
...

We are putting together such a tape.  The only question is to as if we will
let it out before Siggraph or not.  The animation/rendering is all finished.

Also a word about render.  I think our render is getting very good.  While
there is no real "state of the art render" for the Amiga, yet, there are some
that are getting pretty good.  However there is a big difference between our
render and everyone else's (at least on the Amiga.)

We render spline surface patches, not polygons or simple shapes.  Therefore
if you compare our render on very simple shapes we are going to lose.  But if
you try to render a complex shape modeled with spline patches, the tables
turn.  First, we can do more complex things because to use polygons requires
vastly more rendering surfaces.  Many of our characters just couldn't be
model with polygons with Amiga software.  (PIXAR has done very complex polygon
models, so it can be done, but it requires a LOT of computer to do it.)

Most of the comments about the renderer relate to people comparing it at the
lowest level, and not for the level of rendering it is written for.

Another issue is that every little change in the modeling software seems to
impact the rendering.  However, we have now frozen the modeling with version
1.3 of Animation:Jouneyman.  (At least until we go to 2.0.)  So now the
render has caught up with the modeler.

However, I think our tape of "Joyride" will speak for itself.  It is now
being single framed.  So just hold in there....

                                             Wayne Knapp
--
[e-mail]  ...!{tektronix!nosun,uunet}techbook!waynekn
Public Access UNIX at [phone] (1200/2400) Voice: [phone]
Public Access User --- Not affiliated with TECHbooks


##

Subject: Re: I need an IFF eye!
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 92 09:00:33 GMT
From: uunet!bknight.jpr.com!yury@email (Yury German)

Hi Michael (Michael Linton), in <[e-mail]> on Jul 08 you wrote:

: Hi all, I'm looking for a good (well even if it's not so good) IFF picture
: of the human eye.  It know, it's s strange request, but I need it for my
: head (not my head, the one I modeled).  Anyways, if you happen to have
: something to fit that bill, could you PLEASE e-mail it to me?  I'd really
: appreciate it.  It doesn't have to be 24bit, Hires, or Laced HAM will do.
: Thanks in advance.
    Well its very simple to model the eye!!! All you need to do is
draw an elongated circle (football shape) then all you do is put 2 circles
within it. One within the other! Make sure that one of the circles on the
outside is opaque and the inside is black. There goes your eye.     _____________________________________________________________________
   |                                                                     |
   | Yury German                  yury@bknight                           |
   | Blue-Knight Productions      GENIE EMAIL: Blue-Knight               |
   | [phone]                (Graphic Design and Video Productions) |
   | [phone]                P.O. Box 985, Queens, New York, 11354  |
   |_____________________________________________________________________|



##

Subject: Someone's gotta say it...
Date: Sun, 19 Jul 92 22:14:20 -0500
From: [e-mail] (PJ Foley)

It's a dirty job, but...

Where's Essence?  As long as the delay is adding a bunch of cool features,
I'll wait!!!  If you're smashing bugs - great!

But seriously, I was wondering if I missed a posting about it's availibility
and cost.  Especially the price.  What can we expect to pay for what is
almost Imagine 3.0!!!???!!!

Just an impatient Imagine user and S. Warley fan,

PJ Foley  :-)
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------#
| "My moral standing is lying down."       Kinetic Dreams wholeheartedly  |
|         --Trent Reznor, NIN              agrees with the things I have  |
| "The problem with SynthBananas is that   written here.                  |
|  you still have to peel them."           And so should everyone else.   |
|        --Vacter                          Kinetic Dreams, Lafayette, IN  |
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------#



##

Subject: Someone's gotta say it...
Date: Sun, 19 Jul 92 21:23:43 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Glenn M. Lewis ~)

>>>>> On Sun, 19 Jul 92 22:14:20 -0500, [e-mail] (PJ Foley) said:

PJ> It's a dirty job, but...

PJ> Where's Essence?  As long as the delay is adding a bunch of cool
PJ> features, I'll wait!!!  If you're smashing bugs - great!

    It's on its way!!!

PJ> But seriously, I was wondering if I missed a posting about it's
PJ> availibility and cost.  Especially the price.  What can we expect to
PJ> pay for what is almost Imagine 3.0!!!???!!!

    Well, I believe Steve is now shipping out the announcement to
people, and if you are lucky, he might even post a message to this list.
No, you haven't missed it yet.  Steve has been a very busy guy, and the
message should be coming any moment now.

PJ> Just an impatient Imagine user and S. Warley fan,

    Hey, what about me?  :-)  Oh, and just in case that was not a
typo, his last name is spelled "Worley", which will help you locate him
at "[e-mail]".

                        -- Glenn Lewis
                        (co-author of Essence)

Glenn Lewis | [e-mail] | These are my opinions...not Intel's


##

Subject: Jman
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 92 11:37:59 -0400
From: [e-mail]

Over the years, I have been following with interest the discussions
about Animation Journeyman.  The most recent post about Jman contains
a very complimentary description.  But it does however mention a
complaint that I have heard more than once from people who are
involved in production of animation for clients (and whose judgement I
trust).  The renderer is slow and inferior to a program like Imagine.
Imagine in slow enough and only with the release of DCTV provided good
enough quality images for amateurs like me.  I am curious about a
comparison of rendering speed and image quality betweeb Jman,
Lightwave (I have a 3000), and Imagine (which I own).  Unfortunately,
because I cannot check out Jman at my local dealer, there is no way
for me to determine for myself the relative merits of Jman vs. other
programs that I own or have used.

Is there anyone who has Jman and one (or both) of the other two
programs that can shed some light on this?  Also, there has been mentions
of a demo video tape that should be available by now.  Has anyone seen
the demo or knows if it is indeed available?  I am most interested in
character animation, but have held back on Jman because I do not buying a
product I cannot play with first.

Rich Nollman


##

Subject: Avarice2.lha
Date: Sun, 19 Jul 92 15:15:59 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Andrew Denton)


    Well i got more then 12 mail messages asking for a close up of the dragon, so i rendered a nice zoom in of Avarice... Right now im working on the animation of the dragon, tail swashing,fire breathing etc that i hope to single frame record soon...

      Also Avarice2.lha has a nice view of Steve Worley's new Veined Marble, a texture that is just a taste of the 65 textures <not image maps, actual textures>... I highly recomend Essence... It sure beats 1-2 megs an image map compared to the 15 k it
it takes for a texture!!!!!!
                                               Andrew Denton...

   Ill put it on hubcap.clemson.edu... also check out Wuarchive.wustl.edu
 in /pub/AMIGA_UPLOADS/pics/guardian/ and /systems/amiga/video/pics/guardian/
 for more renderings... take carE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


##

Subject: Mask on Hubcap
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 92 19:22:41 PDT
From: [e-mail]

Hi, I grabbed Mask.lha off of hubcap and have not been able to un-LHA it
I get a "bad decoding table" error message.  Since I have seen others discuss
Mask.lha I must assume something happened to just my copy... any Ideas what I
may have done wrong? this is my first FTP.

Don DeCosta           |The nice thing about sanity is|  VM/Nomad2
[e-mail]   |you can lose it more than once|  Amiga/Imagine


##

Subject: Northern Lights
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 92 00:23:12 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Thomas E. Smith [LORAL])

News about Essence has got my mind whirling on ideas to try. I heard that
Essence does magic with fractals. And what I wanted to do is this:
Create a plane, where fractal slits are somehow made with Essence by making
fractal shapes with filter rather than color. (Will this be possible?)

Then I take a conical light source (so the light travels straight up and down)
and put it under the plane. The light will be shining through the animated
fractal slits. The light should be invisible to the camera because it is
traveling up the z axis, and we are looking horizontaly at it.

To make the aroura visible, I put a fog plane with some height so the light
travels through the fog. The slits of light should look like curtains of
light in the fog plane.

I don't know about the first part yet, because Essence has yet to make its
debut (hint :) ). But I tried experimenting on the second part by making a
fog plane and putting an object between it and the light source, hoping to
see a shadow in my fog plane. But instead the whole plane lights up.

Any hints on whether or not any of this is possible?

                                                 Tom the Smith


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The opinions stated here in no way reflect |
           the opinions of the             | Tom Smith
   Galactic Hyperspace Planning Council.   | [e-mail]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------


##

Subject: Re: Mask.lha is definitely a 'WOW'
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 92 01:48:53 CST
From: [e-mail] (Michael Linton)

[e-mail] (Yury German) writes:

> Hi Michael (Michael Linton), in <[e-mail]> on Jul 1
>
> can see it. The problem with the resolution is that only certain people
> can see it. Rendering in 24 bit and converting it to JPEG will let
> everyone view it. Those of us with 24 bit boards and other things.


Yes, I know you can view 24bit pictures, on any machine in HAM or Hires etc.
But, when converting a 24bit picture, down to HAM, the picture looks like
s*it.  Rendering the picture directly in HAM to begin with, looks much
better.  I don't want the picture to be spread around to "all machines". As
I stated in the text file, the picture MUST remain in IFF HAM mode. If your
lucky enough to have a 24bit card, then congrats.  But, I'm not one of those
people...


--
[e-mail] (Michael Linton)
The Draco Unix System, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada



##

Subject: Re: Mask.lha is definitely a 'WOW'
Date: Sat, 18 Jul 92 10:16:38 GMT
From: uunet!bknight.jpr.com!yury@email (Yury German)

Hi Michael (Michael Linton), in <[e-mail]> on Jul 16 you wrote:

: Always a rainbow <[e-mail]> writes:
:
: > and I;d love to see a jpeg version of it.
: > (hint??)
:
:
: Well, your not going to see a 24bit version of it, if that's what your
: getting at. :)  I don't have a 24bit card, and there for know what it's
: like to see these pictures that I cannot display on my machine.  Therefor, I
: rendered it to the lowest common resolution.  (well almost).  Sorry. Yeesh,
: give a 16 year old kid a break eh?! :)  TTYSS

    Michael, but JPEG is the ability to see it on all machines. It is
also possible to convert JPEG pictures into HAM or HIRES so that everyone
can see it. The problem with the resolution is that only certain people
can see it. Rendering in 24 bit and converting it to JPEG will let
everyone view it. Those of us with 24 bit boards and other things.
    _____________________________________________________________________
   |                                                                     |
   | Yury German                  yury@bknight                           |
   | Blue-Knight Productions      GENIE EMAIL: Blue-Knight               |
   | [phone]                (Graphic Design and Video Productions) |
   | [phone]                P.O. Box 985, Queens, New York, 11354  |
   |_____________________________________________________________________|



##

Subject: Re: Mask.lha is definitely a 'WOW'
Date:     Tue, 21 Jul 1992 10:12:21 -0400
From: John J Humpal <[e-mail]>

Michael Linton writes:
>
> Yes, I know you can view 24bit pictures, on any machine in HAM or Hires etc.
> But, when converting a 24bit picture, down to HAM, the picture looks like
> s*it.  Rendering the picture directly in HAM to begin with, looks much
> better.

    Michael, this simply isn't true.  What do you use to dither down
from 24-bit?  ADPro does a fantastic job, and I'm told Image Master does,
too.  For that matter, though I've never used them, I hear pbm and Wasp
can do this too.  In general, it's almost always a plus to render in
24-bits, then dither down if you need to.

> I don't want the picture to be spread around to "all machines".

    Why not?

--
-John

John J. Humpal -- [e-mail] -- short .sig, std. disclaimer



##

Subject: Status of Amiga
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 92 10:05:39 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Dale R Rogers)

    Imagineers,

    Excuse me for posting a general Amiga info message to the list.
    But I was wondering if any has heard anything about this.  I live
    in Huntsville Alabama.  In the Huntsville Times on Sunday there
    was an article in the Business/Technology section that had the
    heading "Commodore lets Amiga die despite its advanced options".
    The article is written by Phillip Robinson.  He is an author of
    books and aricles on computing and editor for Virtual Information
    Systems of Sausalito, Calif.

    The first sentence in the article is "The Amiga is dead".

    The rest of the article gives a history of the Amiga. It's
    startings and how Commodore got involved with it in the first
    place.  It talks about the Amiga dieing "...because Commodore
    denied it growth, support or even respect".

    At the end of the article is a subheading titled After Life.
    Under that heading is:

    "If you have an Amiga, don't fret about this news.  You've adapted
    to living in the dark, being fed biodegradable stories about new
    models and upgrades.  There will be new games, a few new programs,
    a few new accelerator boards and fellow enthusiasts to club with
    for another five years at least.

    [Paragraph deleted]

    If you want to work with digital video, the Toaster is good enough
    to warrant buying an Amiga,  But don't think of it as your
    computer; consider it just a power supply for the Toaster.

    But if you're not already hooked on the Amiga or fascinated by
    video toasting, don't even think of buying one."

    Has anyone heard anything about official statements from Commodore
    that they will stop making/improving/supporting the Amiga.  The
    article mentions no statements from Commordore, yet goes on as if
    something "official" was declared.  I am preparing to buy more
    memory and add-on cards.  I am preparing to use the Amiga as the
    hub of my animation studio.  Am I sinking my resources into a dead
    platform or is this guy rambling?

    Dale



       _____________________________^_____________________________
                                  __ __
                                ____ ____
       _____________________________ _____________________________
       dale r. rogers                Email:  ingr!b24a!camelot!dale
                                     Internet:
                                     [e-mail]

                                    .






##

Subject: Re:  Status of Amiga
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 92 14:07:16 -0400
From: [e-mail] (ESTES,JON-PAUL)

An employee of Commodore comes to every one of our meetings here at
GA Tech,  and he just told us about their advertising plans for the next
six months, including ads in Byte, and other non-Amiga publications.
I don't think that this shows death.

-- Jon-Paul Estes


##

Subject: Re:  Status of Amiga
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 92 13:59:04 -0500
From: [e-mail] (Elizabeth E Sack)

Don't worry about that article.  It was posted in a silicon valley newspaper
a week or two ago.  I think we have all seen to many hints at current progress
to believe that the Amiga is dead (ie--beta versions of WB2.1, WB2.05, the
Amiga 600, hints about the new AA chipset.

Remember that Commodore is *STILL* producing the C64.  I don't see C= as a
company to just stop producing a product like the Amiga.  Especially since it
is on of the best selling machines in Europe.


##

Subject: Re: Mask.lha is definitely a 'WOW'
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 92 11:54:45 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Aaron Tucker)

>     Michael, this simply isn't true.  What do you use to dither down
> from 24-bit?  ADPro does a fantastic job, and I'm told Image Master does,
> too.  For that matter, though I've never used them, I hear pbm and Wasp
> can do this too.  In general, it's almost always a plus to render in
> 24-bits, then dither down if you need to.
>
ADPro does ok, but ImageMaster does a lot better. The dithering algorithms
they use do a much better job of simulating colors in both HAM and in a 16
color hires mode.
The pictures that usually look bad are ones with graduated fills on many
colors. The HAM pallete simply cannot coe close to approximating all those
colors. Plus, you have the problem of HAM itself, where one color affects the
color next to it on a scanline.
I have used most all of the PD converters and all of the commercial converters
(ADPro, ImageMaster, Rasterlink) and find ImageMaster to output the best
quality. ADPro's interface is still better, but quality is more important for
an IP program.

> -John
>
> John J. Humpal -- [e-mail] -- short .sig, std. disclaimer
>
Juan Trevino
[e-mail]



##

Subject: Re: Status of Amiga
Date: 21 Jul 1992 10:23:50 -0800
From: "Mitch Halpern" <[e-mail]>

        Reply to:   RE>Status of Amiga
The same article appeared in the San Jose Mercury News.  I've read the article
a number of times trying to figure out exactly what was being said.  I finally
decided that the author was implying that the Amiga is "dead" as a general
purpose computer: that, in fact, one should stay away from it unless one is
heavily interested in video/graphics applications.  Since it would appear that
the author "got his facts straight", I tend to agree with what I perceive as
his message (ouch, I can feel the flames already).  Since I (we) are certainly
heavily invested in video/graphics applications, my tendency-at first-was to
say "who cares" about the Amiga's status as a general purpose computing
platform.  Unfortunately, sanity hit and I began to wonder if the
video/graphics market can sustain the Amiga enough in the long-term to keep it
a viable development platform for various hardware and software tools that we
would like to know and love.  Commodore does not appear to be overly interested
in the rapid development of improved Amigas; in fact, their US market
performance is so dismal that one has to wonder whether Commodore would have to
be a little batty to spend a bunch of money on the development of advanced
machines when their bread and butter appears to be A500 sales in Europe.

What are the alternatives if the Amiga dies over time from lack of support?
Spurred by the aforementioned "article of doom", I visited a local Mac
emporium.  Here there is good news and bad news.  The good news is that Mac
hardware prices are now roughly compatible with Amiga prices for equivalent
systems and that the Mac is certainly in no danger of disappearing.  The bad
news is that current 3-D rendering and anim software on the Mac is not only
woefully poor in terms of object modelling (compared to Imagine), but is also
outrageously expensive (for example, Stratavision 3-D, apparently one of the
well-reviewed "bargain" packages for the Mac, can be had for $650).

At any rate, I am now relatively reticent to invest any significant amounts of
money in my Amigas until Commodore makes clear what its intentions are for the
future of the Amiga.


Mitch

[e-mail]  "These opinions are my own and are in no danger of
being claimed by someone else"


##

Subject: Jpeg VS HAM
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 92 13:16:42 PDT
From: [e-mail] (Andrew Denton)


      Ive been seeing quite a bit of rather ludicrous that HAM looks better then Jpeg
latley.... Whoever things that should have his/her head examaned... 4096 colors look
ing better then 16,777,216 colors? If i had my way, ide ALWAYS release Jpeg images
and totaly forget about HAM altogether... Altho jpeg can loose some quality the
higher the compression goes, the loss is minimul if used right... and the output
is astounding.   The Only reason why I release HAM raytraced versions at ALL is
for people that dont have the RAM or the Speed to use jpeg effectivly. Even if you
have a HAM display, with no more advanced graphics cards in your amiga, jpeg is almost
ALSWAYS SMALLER then HAM images.. even when the HAM image is HALF the horizontal
resolution <768 instead of 384>... jpeg is almost universal, almost any serious
graphics intensive system can use it, And i belive that ART is not a system
intesive thing, but a personal and expresional thing.  I use imagine and Amigas
because they suite my personal needs, and are affordable compared to the alternatives
.. and for those that are worried about Rainbowing that jpeg can create, just keep the
compression on jpeg low and it will still be dazzeling... and if you want to talk about
 LOSS of image quality, take 16,777,216 (24bit) and devide that by 4096... you get
  4096... HAM... UGH!!!


##

Subject: Re: Status of Amiga
Date:     Tue, 21 Jul 1992 13:29:20 -0400
From: John J Humpal <[e-mail]>

I have no idea where the writer got his information, now how much of it
is or isn't true, but it sounds like the same kind of smoke that gets
blown every day over in c.s.a.advocacy.  Say-- you don't suppose *that's*
where the author picked up his hot scoop, do you?

As for whether you ought to continue to invest in your Amiga by buying
more hardware:  it's up to you.  How much have you invested (in terms of
money, time, blood, sweat and tears) so far?  Do you enjoy working with
your Amiga?  Do you want to continue working with your Amiga?  Let
these questions guide your decision, not some half-baked, unsubstantiated
rumors in the local rag.

--
-John

John J. Humpal -- [e-mail] -- short .sig, std. disclaimer



##

Subject: Status of Amiga
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 92 16:35:36 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Bob Lindabury, SysAdm)

rutgers!camelot.b24a.ingr.com!dale (Dale R Rogers) writes:

>     Has anyone heard anything about official statements from Commodore
>     that they will stop making/improving/supporting the Amiga.  The
>     article mentions no statements from Commordore, yet goes on as if
>     something "official" was declared.  I am preparing to buy more
>     memory and add-on cards.  I am preparing to use the Amiga as the
>     hub of my animation studio.  Am I sinking my resources into a dead
>     platform or is this guy rambling?

Rest assured that the guy in the article was rambling.  There are new
models slated for release for Christmas that will
knock-your-socks-off.

-- Bob

 The Graphics BBS  908/469-0049  "It's better than a sharp stick in the eye!"
 ============================================================================
  InterNet: [e-mail]                | Raven Enterprises
      UUCP: ...rutgers!bobsbox!graphics!bobl      | 25 Raven Avenue
    BitNet: bobl%graphics.rent.com@pucc           | Piscataway, NJ 08854
    Home #: 908/560-7353                          | 908/271-8878


##

Subject: Re: Mask.lha is definitely a 'WOW'
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 92 16:31:43 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Bob Lindabury, SysAdm)

rutgers!bbs.draco.bison.mb.ca!linton (Michael Linton) writes:

> Yes, I know you can view 24bit pictures, on any machine in HAM or Hires etc.
> But, when converting a 24bit picture, down to HAM, the picture looks like
> s*it.  Rendering the picture directly in HAM to begin with, looks much
> better.  I don't want the picture to be spread around to "all machines". As
> I stated in the text file, the picture MUST remain in IFF HAM mode. If your
> lucky enough to have a 24bit card, then congrats.  But, I'm not one of those
> people...

Huh?

I don't know what you are using to convert your 24bit IFFs down to
HAM but whatever it is, you should chuck it in the garbage as my
conversions from 24bit IFF to HAM look MUCH better than any
on-the-fly conversions done by Imagine.  Try ADPRO or WASP or HAMLAB.

These should all produce better results than rendering to HAM mode in
Imagine.

-- Bob

 The Graphics BBS  908/469-0049  "It's better than a sharp stick in the eye!"
 ============================================================================
  InterNet: [e-mail]                | Raven Enterprises
      UUCP: ...rutgers!bobsbox!graphics!bobl      | 25 Raven Avenue
    BitNet: bobl%graphics.rent.com@pucc           | Piscataway, NJ 08854
    Home #: 908/560-7353                          | 908/271-8878


##

Subject: Essence Direct Mail Offer
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 92 12:50:09 MDT
From: [e-mail] (Paul Johnson)

So where is everybody?

Surely more imagine list members have received the direct mail offer from
Apex concerning Essence. Ah well, maybe it's the delay factor:

I received the mailing yesterday, it was postmarked 7/20/92. It contained
an order form, a copy of the color advert that was in the Avid magazine,
another order form for Understanding Imagine and a letter (not signed) by
Steve Worley.

The latter described the genesis of Essence and why it was so good (but no
description of the textures themselves -- interesting marketing). The letter
goes on:

" Since we know you are interested in 3D graphics on the Amiga, we are more
than happy to offer you a chance to order the software ... directly from us.
Essence will be sold through dealers, and should start showing up on their
shelves in early August. If you want to purchase Essence directly from Apex,
you'll probably beat your dealer by a couple of weeks. This list price of Essence
is $79.95, but the 'I'm buddies with Apex!' price is only $48.00. You can use
the envelope and form included to order... Money orders and checks are
cheerfully accepted and orders shipped in the order they are received. Unfortunately
we are not set up to take credit cards."

I am sure I received this offer because of my earlier purchase of Understanding
Imagine. It doesn't say whether they will wait for checks to clear prior to processing
the order.

$48.00 is a good price, it remains to be seen whether we members of the imagine
mailing list will get an equivalent (or, hopefully better) deal.

PAJ


##

Subject: Re: Essence Direct Mail Offer
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 92 15:33:23 CDT
From: Wayne Haufler 283-4160 <[e-mail]>

[e-mail] (Paul Johnson) writes:
> Surely more imagine list members have received the direct mail offer from
> Apex concerning Essence. Ah well, maybe it's the delay factor:

Yep, for the record, I got it too, yesterday and sent right out for it.
For mailing comparisons, note I live near Houston, Texas.

I suppose, since Apex is "not set up to take credit cards", that this
IS the deal for Imagine news group members, since one can't order
via e-mail and a credit card number.  What am I saying?  Would anyone
trust their credit card number to an e-mail message, anyway?

I'm already trying to Imagine what ways I'm going to try to use Essence.



         __      Wayne A. Haufler   [Christian/SW Engineer/XWindows/Amigan]
\\ /\\ /\\ //_    [e-mail]    McDonnell Douglas-Houston
 \/--\// \//__    Hobby:"Exploring the Use of Computer Graphics and
     //                  Animations To Support Christian Endeavors"


P.S. I haven't posted to this group in some time, and since a lot of
you aren't aware of it, allow me to plug my mailing list "godlygraphics",
for discussing Christian uses of computer graphics, and animations and
for related trading of ideas, objects, images, and even joint projects.
Post to "[e-mail]" if interested.


##

Subject: Re: Essence Direct Mail Offer
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 92 17:06:57 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Steve Davis)

Paul Johnson

> $48.00 is a good price, it remains to be seen whether we members of the imagine
> mailing list will get an equivalent (or, hopefully better) deal.

Yeah!  I got Steve's book AND am on the mailing list. I should get
a DOUBLE discount!  ;-)

Stratocaster
--
  Steve Davis  |    Contact me at ...            | The Boarding House BBS!
               | Internet:  [e-mail]    | 9600 baud (v.32/v.42)
               | FidoNet:    Steve @ 1:295/3     | America: 913-827-0744


##

Subject: RE:24 Bit Pics
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 92 15:27
From: [e-mail] (Oldfield, Mark)

> Yes, I know you can view 24bit pictures, on any machine in HAM or Hires
etc.
> But, when converting a 24bit picture, down to HAM, the picture looks
like
> s*it.  Rendering the picture directly in HAM to begin with, looks much
> better.  I don't want the picture to be spread around to "all
machines". As
> I stated in the text file, the picture MUST remain in IFF HAM mode. If
your
> lucky enough to have a 24bit card, then congrats.  But, I'm not one of
those
> people...

>Huh?

>I don't know what you are using to convert your 24bit IFFs down to
>HAM but whatever it is, you should chuck it in the garbage as my
>conversions from 24bit IFF to HAM look MUCH better than any
>on-the-fly conversions done by Imagine.  Try ADPRO or WASP or HAMLAB.

>These should all produce better results than rendering to HAM mode in
>Imagine.


I have heard many claims that there are PD programs which can convert
24-bit pics to HAM.  My only experience is with Wasp, which I have yet to
get satisfactory results (in comparison to Imagine or DPAINT HAM
generated pics).

Perhaps someone could post the PD programs which work WELL for them as
well as the options/parameters they use for a program such as Wasp?
Perhaps some examples for converting JPEG'd pics on Hubcap?

Thanks in advance.

- Mark Oldfield
[e-mail]




##

Subject: SIGGRAPH'92 and AMIGA ...
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 92 11:23:49 CST
From: [e-mail] (Isaac Guajardo Leal)

Do someone know if Commodore and/or special interest groups on the Amiga
are going to participate at SIGGRAPH'92 next week ? Also, third party
vendors for the Amiga (Like Newtek) ? ... I read in NetNews that there is
going to be a meeteing on Wednesday ... any news ?. Thanks in advance
and see ya' at SIGGRAPH ...

          Isaac (PSYCHO) Guajardo
         [e-mail]
"The one who dies with the most toys wins!"


##

Subject: Re: Essence Direct Mail Offer
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 92 16:20:21 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Dale R Rogers)

|So where is everybody?

    I'm right here.

|
|Surely more imagine list members have received the direct mail offer from
|Apex concerning Essence. Ah well, maybe it's the delay factor:

    Must be.  I haven't received any word about Essence.  I am a
    member of the mailing list, I own Imagine 2.0,  and I ordered
    Understanding Imagine 2.0 directly through Apex.  Gosh.  It would
    be nice to save $$ off the dealers cost.


|
|I received the mailing yesterday, it was postmarked 7/20/92. It contained
|an order form, a copy of the color advert that was in the Avid magazine,
|another order form for Understanding Imagine and a letter (not signed) by
|Steve Worley.
|
|The latter described the genesis of Essence and why it was so good (but no
|description of the textures themselves -- interesting marketing). The letter
|goes on:
|
|" Since we know you are interested in 3D graphics on the Amiga, we are more
|than happy to offer you a chance to order the software ... directly from us.
|Essence will be sold through dealers, and should start showing up on their
|shelves in early August. If you want to purchase Essence directly from Apex,
|you'll probably beat your dealer by a couple of weeks. This list price of Essence
|is $79.95, but the 'I'm buddies with Apex!' price is only $48.00. You can use
|the envelope and form included to order... Money orders and checks are
|cheerfully accepted and orders shipped in the order they are received. Unfortunately
|we are not set up to take credit cards."
|
|I am sure I received this offer because of my earlier purchase of Understanding
|Imagine. It doesn't say whether they will wait for checks to clear prior to processing
|the order.
|
|$48.00 is a good price, it remains to be seen whether we members of the imagine
|mailing list will get an equivalent (or, hopefully better) deal.

    Sure would be nice.  I hope to receive my mailing soon.
    IF they forgot about this "I'm buddies with Apex" fella here, I
    hope I'll get a chance at a discount through the mailing list.

|
|PAJ
|


       _____________________________^_____________________________
                                  __ __
                                ____ ____
       _____________________________ _____________________________
       dale r. rogers                Email:  ingr!b24a!camelot!dale
                                     Internet:
                                     [e-mail]

                                    .






##

Subject: RE:24 Bit Pics
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 92 01:31:31 -0400
From: Udo K Schuermann <[e-mail]>

>>I don't know what you are using to convert your 24bit IFFs down to
>>HAM but whatever it is, you should chuck it in the garbage as my
>>conversions from 24bit IFF to HAM look MUCH better than any
>>on-the-fly conversions done by Imagine.  Try ADPRO or WASP or HAMLAB.
>
> I have heard many claims that there are PD programs which can convert
> 24-bit pics to HAM.  My only experience is with Wasp, which I have yet to
> ...
> Perhaps someone could post the PD programs which work WELL for them as
> well as the options/parameters they use for a program such as Wasp?
> Perhaps some examples for converting JPEG'd pics on Hubcap?
>
> - Mark Oldfield

There is a package named PBMPLUS which does a fairly good job quantizing an
image.  Until I got ADPro, I used it quite frequently because it provides a
number of image processing and image manipulation functions.  It's command-
line driven, i.e. it has no user-interface to speak of and does a lot of
disk-I/O, so it is quite slow; it eats RAM at about the same rate as ADPro.

I can't give any comparisons as to image quality from WASP, HAMLAB, and
PBMPLUS; perhaps someone else has more experience with all these packages
and can do that for us.  All I can say that it did a better job than
Imagine at producing good looking HAM images.

 ._.  Udo Schuermann     "If I went around calling myself emperor just because
 ( )  [e-mail]  some moistened bint lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd
 Seeking virtual memory   put me away!"         -- Monty Python's "Holy Grail"


##

Subject: Scaling question
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 92 20:46:16 MDT
From: [e-mail] (Ben Scott)

(I just today got back on the mailing list after being off since last
fall.  Not that any of you missed me, but I'm just saying that if this
has already been discussed then my apologies...)

I'm having some trouble scaling objects that are following paths.  What
I'm trying to do, basically, is to have some words fly out of a giftwrapped
box.  The words are grouped letters from a 3-D font collection I snarfed
from hubcap.  Anyway, they're too tall for the box - the longer words
stick through the bottom and can be seen underneath the table, since they
start in a vertical position.  The letters are following a curvy path.

Anyway, I have a key set in the Action editor for size, and I tried to
scale the letters but they won't "stick".  I tried changing the numbers
in the size bar in the action editor but that didn't help either (the
numbers stayed changed but the letters also stayed the same size).  I
used the "size bar" menu item to try and create a key in case someone
(possibly me, but probably Imagine) was simply confused, but again, no
luck.  The letter groups are fairly large and complex and I'd rather not
have to maintain two separate object files (one smaller) in order to
morph between them, partly because I'm doing the actual rendering on
my client's '040 and I'd like to be able to carry all the information
over there on something smaller than a Syquest disk; and also because
I'm going to have to be changing the attributes quite often and it'd
be a real pain to have to load them, change each letter (why don't
grouped objects share attributes?  I never noticed that they didn't
before I tried using these grouped letters...).

So is there any way for me to get these letters to start small and
grow larger while following the path?

(I"ve been working on this anim for a week... it's supposed to be due
tomorrow... but I can postpone 'til Saturday so long as I can figure out
some way to make sure it's finished rendering by Monday no matter what)

.                            <<<<Infinite K>>>>

--
.---------------------------------------------------------------------------.
|Ben Scott, professional goof-off and consultant at The Raster Image, Denver|
|Internet [e-mail], or call the Arvada 68K BBS at [phone].|
|--------------------------------------..-----------------------------------|
|"Where are we going??"  "Planet 10!!" ||The Raster Image IS responsible for|
|"When?!" "Real soon!!"-Buckaroo Banzai||everything I say!  ** Amiga Power**|
`--------------------------------------'`-----------------------------------'


##

Subject: Cylindrical lights
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 92 12:05:46 MDT
From: [e-mail] (Ben Scott)

Another bug?  Last night I tried a cylindrical light source in order to
illuminate some things with other things behind them I didn't want more light
on.  I set up a size bar and typed in my values.  The diameter came out
perfectly but the y axis which is supposed to control length doesn't seem
to work as stated in the Worley book.  I started at 132 units, but it hit
the wall behind (which I didn't want).  I went to 13.2 and finally .00132
and it still hits the wall, though the X axis set at 60 units gives me a
60-unit diameter circle of light all right.

Any other way to do what I'm trying to do?  Basically I have a very carefully
lit room which is mostly light coming down from overhead.  Letters come out
and fly up to the camera but they're almost directly under the light source
and don't get lit well at all.  It's crucial that the rest of the scene not
get much more light than it has now.  A limited-range cylindrical light
source seemed the perfect solution.

Also, since I already have four lightsources making raytracing times rather
long, do cylindrical lightsources take less time to render?  I already
have the worldsize set to zero.  But two of my lightsources are meant for
specific areas and I can't help thinking that Imagine is computing for an
awful lot of photons it doesn't have to - or is it?   Would replacing a
sphereical light source with a directed one help?

Also, I finally decided to simply set up two sets of those letter objects,
one already scaled in Detail and one normal, and morph between them, to
solve the problem I posted about yesterday.  But they don't seem to morph!
I have the transition frames set to 15 but it still seems to switch all at
once.  Am I hitting EVERY major Imagine bug in this one project or what?

.                       <<<<Infinite K>>>>

--
.---------------------------------------------------------------------------.
|Ben Scott, professional goof-off and consultant at The Raster Image, Denver|
|Internet [e-mail], or call the Arvada 68K BBS at [phone].|
|--------------------------------------..-----------------------------------|
|"Where are we going??"  "Planet 10!!" ||The Raster Image IS responsible for|
|"When?!" "Real soon!!"-Buckaroo Banzai||everything I say!  ** Amiga Power**|
`--------------------------------------'`-----------------------------------'